Actually, what I find truly sad and pathetic about "Mahmoud's Magnanimous Gesture"© is that, as petty, putrid, and despicable as it was to detain the British sailors in the first place...and as cynical a show-trial-followed-by-mercy-and-deliverance today's rhetoric is--"On the occasion of the birthday of the great prophet (Muhammad) ... and for the occasion of the passing of Christ, I say the Islamic Republic government and the Iranian people--with all powers and legal right to put the soldiers on trial--forgave those 15," he said, referring to the Muslim prophet's birthday on March 30 and the Easter holiday.
"This pardon is a gift to the British people," he said.
I'll bet Scooter Libby wishes he were a British sailor in Iran right now...anyway, I've digressed again--my point is that despite the epic levels of petty cynicism, Ahmadinejad's managed to pull off something from this stunt Team Bush shows no capacity for--he managed to weasel his way into an approximate gesture of mercy...right down to his request that Britain "not punish" the crew.
Contrast Ahmadinejad's statements with our government's responses to Maher Arar. Or Khalid El-Masri...and others.
And...sigh...but, just to insure against nattering wingnuttia--here are a couple of today's latest examples--this post in no way implies an endorsement of the Iranian president. You'd think the picture would suffice, but wingnuts require explaination...often very slowly, and repeatedly.
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