Dan, what it looked like in the US, apart from lines of cars at gasoline filling stations, was not much of anything. At least not until that Reza-Pahlevi fellow, ill with cancer, took refuge in the U.S. and the Iranian “students” countered with taking the entire US Embassey hostage.

Then what it looked like was the yellow-ribbon thing, the candle light vigils, and other such tools of statecraft. The media, notably ABC News with their creation of Nightline just for the occasion played along. It was “Day 10 of the Hostage Crisis” and later on “Day 30 of the Hostage Crisis.” If I remember correctly, it got into triple digits.

Early on, the “Day N of the Hostage Crisis” was part of the yellow-ribbon and candle light vigil response, but as the thing wore on, this manner of media coverage became almost a nag at the impotence of the Carter Presidency. It became a self parody, both of what was happening (or not happening) and of the way the media covered it.

The whole episode engendered a goodly amount of closeted hatred in the recesses of the American consciousness toward Persians and towards the Middle East in general. I remember reading something on a toilet stall wall at an otherwise progressive institution of higher learning that I won’t repeat here. Of course they hated us more than we could hate them on account of that Commie Guy we kicked out to put the Shah in, and we remain the Great Satan and Death to America.

So it is just like the anti-Barney — I hate you, you hate me, and so on. And so it continued until Lt Colonel Oliver North’s “neat idea” where we were trading parts for Hawk anti-aircraft missile batteries for hostages held in Lebanon — does anyone recall the treatment of US captives in Lebanon and why some of us have good feelings about Camp X-ray?

As I understand it, we were in some way violating our tough stand against hostage takers, but we were having an actual dialog with at least some faction in Iran, and Iran was armed with aging US anti-aircraft rockets instead of the latest Russian models, and Israel (Israel!) and Saudi were acting as the go-between (the famous Country Number 1 and Country Number 2).

So there was a time when you were 10 that we were actually talking to the Iranians as Mr. Obama so wishes to do, and I even remember there was a cake exchanged as a neighborly gesture, but a certain Special Prosecuter would not take yes for an answer and I think you now know The Rest of the Story.