The New York Sun runs this editorial on Alhurra, America’s Middle East satellite news network run by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (where I used to work):

Among Alhurra’s blunders has been a broadcast of Hezbollah’s leading ideologist of anti-Jewish terror, Sheik Nasrallah. Alhurra kept him on the air — live, no less — for more than an hour, a stunt that some members of Congress recently charged, in a letter to Secretary Rice, violated a written policy. The congressmen quoted a report in the Wall Street Journal that quoted Sheik Nasrallah, five minutes into his rant on Alhurrah, as saying “the only place where bullets should be is the chest of the enemies of Lebanon: the Israeli enemy.” The congressmen also cited a bizarre broadcast that gave credence to Iran’s Holocaust denial conference. This has lead to calls in the Congress and in the press (particularly eloquently in dispatches by Joel Mowbray issued by the Wall Street Journal) for greater oversight.

The Holocaust denial conference mention is particularly noteworthy.  Some examples of what Alhurra broadcast:

• Anchor: “Iranian foreign minister Manushaher Muttaki said that his country’s intent is not to deny or prove this issue (the Holocaust).”
• Mohamed Abou Jihad, Hamas’ representative in Tehran: ““It is obvious that only part of the story is told regarding what happened during WWII.”
• Reporer: “Even if opinions have differed about how true the Holocaust is, particularly that some denied its occurrence.”
• David Duke: “Thanks to President Ahmedinejad, experts from all around the world were able to gather here in order to discuss this incident and exchange views about it.”

This may represent the worst lapse in editorial judgment ever for America’s international broadcasting efforts.

If you caught C-SPAN’s “Road the White House” Sunday, you saw John McCain tearing up Iowa with jokes and personality (Dan Balz captures the spirit here.)

One semi-serious joke I particularly enjoyed was McCain saying that on principle, he refuses to learn how to pronounce the  Iranian president’s name.

Great line.  And a wonderfully stark contrast to what we see in Howard Kurtz’s column today.

Kurtz profiles “Good Morning America’s” Diane Sawyer after her on-location interview with Iran’s president (for the record: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad).

Asked about criticism that she was giving America’s enemies a platform, Sawyer says: “We may violently disagree with them, but first we must try to understand the way they see the world if we can.”

Understand them?  Would love to know McCain’s thoughts on that.  Perhaps he can take on Sawyer next.

Advocates of the worldwide spread of freedom and democratic capitalism are having a good weekend from the normally unlikeliest of sources — the Washington Post editorial page.

Here’s Saturday’s editorial:

At 61, Mr. Ortega may understand something that Mr. Chávez, 52, and his would-be followers have yet to learn: Socialist economics are a recipe for impoverishment, while political power grabs tend to boomerang. The mini-bloc of Latin outliers poses little threat to the United States or the region’s overall stability. But even as their neighbors consolidate democratic institutions and unprecedented prosperity, the people of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Cuba may be headed for a miserable year.

And here’s what the editorial page offers Sunday:

The Bush administration’s recent steps against Iran, which have included the dispatch of a second aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf and the arrest of Iranian agents in Iraq, have worried a lot of people in Washington, who fear that the White House may be gearing up for another war. Fortunately, some influential people in Tehran appear to be getting nervous, as well. The stock market is dropping, and capital flight is accelerating. Some influential voices have begun publicly suggesting that flexibility as well as toughness is needed in dealing with the West. Pressure is growing on radical President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has been rebuked by voters in recent elections, by parliamentary resolutions and by editorials in newspapers that reflect the views of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.  All this suggests that the U.S. measures, compounded by a U.N. sanctions resolution, may be having an effect on the mullahs.

Even with the predictable qualifiers, these editorials are worthy of posting on freedom-lovers bulletin boards everywhere.

We normally don’t laugh at the zany antics of any member of the Axis of Evil, particularly when that member (and his Members Only jacket) possesses both nukes and Holocaust nostalgia.  But this item about Iran from the MEMRI website has us fondly remembering the crack-up robots from Mystery Science Theater 3000:

The following are excerpts from an Iranian sci-fi film titled “The Land of Wishes,” part of a series, which aired on Iranian Channel 1 on October 20, 2006. In it, an evil queen, adorned with a large Star of David and sitting on a throne in the “Black House” (which is also marked with a Star of David) engages in a battle of “virtual warriors” with a young girl who seeks to free the masses the queen has enslaved. When the queen is defeated, her technicians die struggling to rescue a “medal” - also a Star of David.

To view a clip, click here.

The bad news:

Iran has blocked access to the popular video-sharing Web site YouTube.com, and a media rights group warned that Internet censorship in that country is on the rise. Internet users in Iran who tried to call up the YouTube site got the message “On the basis of the Islamic Republic of Iran laws, access to this Web site is not authorized,” which also appears on numerous opposition and pornographic Web sites that the government blocks.

The good news: Iranians are a plucky, information-starved people.  The mullahs also ban satellite dishes, but millions of Iranians have them.  Witness the top of this Tehran apartment building:

I give the Iranian people a short period of time before they outfox the mullahs and get YouTube back.

In today’s column, Bob Novak writes this about Newt Gingrich:

He depicts failed efforts to broadcast the truth to Iran and North Korea. The problem is that Gingrich has played fast and loose with facts, understating the actual U.S. effort.  Gingrich ignored a personal correction from Kenneth Tomlinson, chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, and continued the misrepresentation. … Unfounded accusations about U.S. international broadcasts point to a longtime carelessness with facts.

The fact of the matter, as Novak points out, is that America actually has a robust and expanding satellite TV news broadcasting operation to Iran (I used to work for the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees America’s nonmilitary international broadcasting.)

Is it having an impact?  Tomlinson wrote this in the Wall Street Journal, May 6, 2006:

Small satellite dishes are proliferating in Iran and there are strong indications that VOA’s nightly programming is becoming a staple for large numbers of Iranians. Telephone polling (which tends to undercount audiences living under repressive regimes) show that better than one-in-five adult television viewers say they regularly watch VOA’s satellite television programs.   As was the case with RFE/RL and VOA in the Cold War, it is important that our broadcasts are provocative — and credible. Intense journalistic supervision is critical to achieving this goal. Truth does not lie half way between the views of Washington and Tehran. But talk and debate programs give Iranians a taste of freedom — and enlightenment.

This is precisely the model that worked during the Cold War — broadcasting the truth to repressed people.  Ultimately, the furture of Iran is up to the people of Iran.  But with the mullahs oeprating four 24/7 satellite channels of their own, beaming throughout the region, America’s efforts should be applauded by leaders like Newt Gingrich.

The best part of the “Recognizing Iran as a Strategic Threat: An Intelligence Challenge for the United States” staff report of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’s Subcommittee on Intelligence Policy?

This photo of Iranian President Ahmadinejad on page 1:

At first, Extreme Mortman was struck by Mike Wallace, during his interview with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calling President Bush the commander-in-chief of the “so-called free world.”  So-called?
But then we noticed — in one of those circuitous blog ways — via Hugh Hewitt, via Little Green Footballs, this Kos comment:

He is smart and is also media savvy or surrounded by people that are, as shown by the wardrobe, the mannerisms and likely even the pitch and tone of his chosen translator

His wardrobe?
Actually, yes, his wardrobe.  In an open collar shirt and a Members Only-esque-like jacket (same for his press handler, seen briefly at the end), Ahmajdinejad looked equal parts dashingly fashionable and cab driver.  Certainly not the pajamas you’d expect of a blogger.

(For a great post on how members of the axis of evil — and other tyrants, dictators, and totalitarians — are dressing for terror success these days, check out Catch Up Lady.)

Extreme Mortman culinary correspondent Vic Matus strikes gold with this week’s parody in the Weekly Standard:

From today’s Post:

Annan’s appeal to members was calculated to prod the United States — which has backed Israel’s operation in Lebanon — to reverse course in opposing an immediate cease-fire. Annan was joined in that call by an unexpected voice: Ann M. Veneman, a former member of President Bush’s Cabinet, who is executive director of UNICEF.

Also from today’s Post,  Richard Haass, who was President Bush’s first-term State Department policy planning director and who now …

leads the Council on Foreign Relations, laughed at the president’s public optimism. “An opportunity?” Haass said with an incredulous tone. “Lord, spare me. I don’t laugh a lot. That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time. If this is an opportunity, what’s Iraq? A once-in-a-lifetime chance?”

Would love to be a fly on the wall at the CFR when Haas runs into new senior fellow Michael Gerson, President Bush’s longtime speechwriter and adviser.