Israel Matzav

Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Iranian diplomats

At Monday's State Department briefing, spokesman Ian Kelly announced that Iranian diplomats around the world would still be welcome at US embassy celebrations on July 4.

QUESTION: This isn’t a frivolous question, really. Do you think it’s still appropriate to have Iranians come to these July 4th parties under the circumstances? I mean, is there any thought being given to like, rescinding invitations?

MR. KELLY: No, there’s no thought to rescinding the invitations to Iranian diplomats.

QUESTION: It’s appropriate to have a social dialogue with them if they come?

MR. KELLY: Well, we have made a strategic decision to engage on a number of fronts with Iran, and we tried many years of isolation and we’re pursuing a different path now.

QUESTION: Have they said yes?

QUESTION: The President keeps saying that —

MR. KELLY: I don’t know, Arshad.

At Contentions, Max Boot slams the State Department decision (Hat Tip: Danny A).

It’s bad enough that the president is deliberately refraining from being too outspoken in favor of the freedom fighters who are being beaten, shot, and tear-gassed in the streets of Tehran. But that he’s still prepared to have America’s diplomats break bread with representatives of the very regime which is responsible for this terrible oppression, and to do it on the holiday that celebrates our own struggle for freedom–that’s too nauseating for words.

It essentially confirms the analysis of those who have suggested that Obama is not going to deviate one iota from his previous course of “engagement” with Iran, no matter how absurd and immoral that course now appears to be. For a candidate who mocked the previous president for his supposed adherence to ideology over reality, Obama is displaying that very tendency–only, of course, his ideology is not the advancement of freedom but the advancement of negotiations in the vain hope that somehow we can find common ground with the world’s vilest regimes.

This administration is completely tone deaf to morality and human decency. And to think that when I was a kid, it was Republican administrations that were taken to task for associating with the most repressive regimes they could find. My how the world has changed.

The picture above is of President Obumbler and the Gaffemeister showing their insensitivity to world events over the weekend. It's not the same picture I posted yesterday. Hat Tip Shy Guy for the photoshop.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:52 PM