Saturday, November 1, 2008

And This is a Good Thing?

From Thomas L. Friedman's excellent piece "Sleepless in Tehran" in Thursday's New York Times:

Barack Hussein Obama would present another challenge for Iran’s mullahs. Their whole rationale for being is that they are resisting a hegemonic American power that wants to keep everyone down. Suddenly, next week, Iranians may look up and see that the country their leaders call “The Great Satan” has just elected “a guy whose middle name is the central figure in Shiite Islam — Hussein — and whose last name — Obama — when transliterated into Farsi, means ‘He is with us,’ ” . . .
Wow. Too "international" and too post-nationalist a worldview for me. I suppose one of the chief differences between Mr. Friedman and myself is how we view the logical implications of the world we both perceive. Mr. Friedman can view a set of facts and think their implications are something wonderful to be embraced; I see identical facts and want to throw up.

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