Contrary views: Ahmadinejad and Rather

I'm glad to see it's not just me who is dismayed at Americans' tendency to need a demon to hate. Hitler? Gone. Saddam? Gone. Now who can we hate? Castro is dying, and Castro hatred was never universal. Chavez? They tried. We don't all hate him. North Korea? Too far away, or something.

At any rate, it seems Americans have picked the leader of Iran to concentrate our national hatred on. And the media for the most part only cheerleads for the home team.

There are some contrary voices, though, thank goodness. Dave Winer says it all in this fine posting, Media you can't trust.

We lose so much when we don't have the courage to listen to our foes. Some of my countrymen see it as a sign of weakness to listen, but they're wrong -- if we're sure we're right, what exactly do we have to lose by listening?

Winer also discusses the 'Betray Us' ad.

And, via Tennessee Guerrilla Women, this post, Iranian University Presidents Denounce Columbia's Lee Bollinger, which calls Bollinger 'the world's rudest host'. I also thought it was a shocking action by a president of a -- hopefully neutral -- university. Also from Tennessee Guerrilla Women: No Gays in Iran and No Gays in the GOP! What a Coincidence!

Here's a contrary opinion on a totally different topic, but also not what the majority seem to want to hear, from Eric Boehlert at Media Matters: Dan Rather is right.

Right-wing bloggers may have sparked the so-called Memogate story in 2004 by raising doubts about the military memos, but three years later it is the mainstream press that is adamant in condemning Rather
...The simple, yet apparently elusive, truth is that CBS' report on Bush and the National Guard could have (and should have) been broadcast without the controversial memos. And if it had been, the results would have been exactly the same.

(Added later:) Great discussion, with lots of links and a couple hundred comments, on Dan Rather's suit, at Pressthink: Rather Unbound Will Redo the Killian Memos Story.