It’s no spoof. In Britain, where the Queen every year delivers a televised Christmas message, the UK’s Channel 4 is planning to air an “Alternative Christmas Message“– from Iran’s Chief Executive Terrorist-Sponsoring Totalitarian Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
If Britons wish to spend part of their Christmas tuning in to Ahmadinejad’s oily talk of a “joyful, shining and wonderful age,” so be it — though one might have hoped they’d learned their lesson about this sort of thing back in the late 1930s. But broadcasting this kind of performance inflicts its worst damage in places like Iran itself, where the problem is not Ahmadinejad’s message to people of Britain, but Britain’s message to the people of Iran: For those in Iran who aspire to freedom, it can hardly be encouraging that in Britain a free people would so demean themselves as to give this preening thug his own special slot on the air — let alone as an alternative, in any capacity whatsoever, to their Queen. This is not an issue of free speech, but of fools at Channel 4 indulging in a stunt that ought to earn them not higher ratings, but a one-way ticket to Iran.
On a brighter note, some things are right with the world this Christmas Eve. The AP reports that in keeping with American tradition, NORAD is watching over Santa Claus. Merry Christmas!
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