Khatami's BS

CSPAN aired Khatami's speech at Harvard. After his spiel, he took questions. His answers included laughable lies and recurrent themes.
One student asked about the current Holocaust cartoon exhibition in Tehran. He said that the exhibit shouldn't be taken as official policy of the IRI because there are freedoms in Iran, as there are here. LOL!! Yes, he said that with a straight face! Then he repeated a statement I'd heard him make before, which was supposed to convince everyone how free Iranians are to speak their minds against the government. He said that when he was president, many people disagreed and were free to speak out against him, and he's proud of that. LoL.
(Nevermind that the regime shut down about 100 newspapers and magazines while he was president and just shut down another newspaper - a 'reformist' one)


Then he was asked about capital punishment, specifically with regard to gays in Iran and how that fits in with his talk of non-violence.
He gave the regime line : punishment is not a form of violence. Punishment is a response to deviance and violent acts. Homosexuality is a crime in islam and crimes are punishable. Then of course he had to say that capital punishent is used in the U.S.. He said that Iran has strict rules for the use of capital punishment and that it shouldn't be used often. He didn't mention that the regime breaks its own rules all the time (like inventing charges against people) and their preferred method of capital punishment is hanging people from cranes which is a violent and inhumane death, because it strangles the person rather than traditional hanging which instantly breaks the person's neck. The person may struggle for over 10 mins before they finally die. Their method of capital punishment is meant as a spectacle because it's carried out in public and the corpse is left hanging afterward for all to see.
Not at all like the capital punishment used here. We reserve the ultimate punishment for the ultimate crimes... murder. Not several different crimes, one being speaking against the Supreme Leader and another being converting to another religion.

I also saw the press conference he gave at Washington's National Cathedral.
He repeated that Iran is a democracy (several times) and are therefore people are free to speak. (until they're arrested) He took pride in all the dissent toward him during his presidency. After all, that was proof that Iran is a democracy just like the U.S.

I noticed he had some trouble dealing with questions about Ahmadinejad, though he managed to parse his words and rephrase a re-explain to everyone what Ahmadinejad REALLY meant in some of his outrageous statements against jews, Israel, and the U.S. (Don't believe your lying ears or problems with the translation)
Hard to convince people that you're really for peace and brotherhood when you support the regime too. But he tried his lying best.

So, people who bothered to listen at all, got a taste of the doublespeak that the Iranian people are fed every day. Hopefully, they caught it. Maybe some even caught that Khatami used the same talking points as the democrats and leftists in this country. The side-by-side comparisons between the statements coming from the regime and those coming from the DNC would be a revealing post. In fact, it would make an interesting ad during this upcoming election time. I wonder if anyone has the nerve to do it? I seriously doubt it.

Here's a clue to voters on the fence or anyone who truly cares about the future of the civilized world : If one side is taking a position that the world's biggest supporter of terrorism is taking, vote for the other side.