Juan Cole: Hey, Sarah Palin is just like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad!

And it’s true -- aside from a few pesky details, such as that he is a genocidally-inclined Jew-hater who holds power by murdering his own people, and she isn’t, it’s an exact match!

It’s all about “right-wing populism,” doncha know. Witless Moral Equivalence Alert: “Sarah Palin, meet Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: You two right-wing populists have a surprising amount in common,” by Juan Cole in Salon, August 3 (thanks to James):

[...] Right-wing populism, rooted in the religion, culture and aspirations of the lower middle class, is often caricatured as insane by its critics. That judgment is unfair. But it is true that such movements often encourage a political style of exhibitionism, disregard for the facts as understood by the mainstream media, and exaltation of the values of people who feel themselves marginalized by the political system. Not all forms of protest, however, are healthy, even if the protesters have legitimate grievances. Right-wing populism is centered on a theory of media conspiracy, a “my country right or wrong” chauvinism, a fascination with an armed citizenry, an intolerance of dissent and a willingness to declare political opponents mere terrorists. It is cavalier in its disregard of elementary facts and arrogant about the self-evident rightness of its religious and political doctrines. It therefore holds dangers both for the country in which it grows up and for the international community. Palin is polling well at the moment against other Republican front-runners such as Mitt Romney, and so, astonishingly, is a plausible future president. At least Iranians only got Ahmadinejad because of rigged elections, and they had the decency to mount massive protests against the result.

They share an “intolerance of dissent and a willingness to declare political opponents mere terrorists”? Only in the febrile and paranoid propaganda of the Left. And the Iranian President has a “fascination with an armed citizenry”? After seeing the mullahs’ thugs brutalize the unarmed people of Iran over the last few weeks, to equate Ahmadinejad with Palin in this way is nothing short of obscene.

Witless Moral Equivalence debunked: my 2007 book Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t.

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