United Liberty

A peculiar story takes shape in the United Kingdom:

Human rights advocates, parliamentarians and Holocaust memorial organizations are among those vocally condemning a plan to broadcast a Christmas speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on BBC’s Channel 4 as a counterpoint to the Queen’s traditional message.

Goodness gracious. Since when have holiday well-wishing speeches become categorized with “point” and “counter-point?” This obsession with multiculturalism and political correctness is getting really bizarre. Would we have broadcast speeches by Joseph Stalin as a counterpoint to the American president or the British prime minister or invited Mao Zedong to speak at Columbia?

I do take issue, however, with the words of one of the protesters of this action by BBC:

“President Ahmadinejad is a torturer and a murderer,” said human rights activist Peter Tatchell as he called on BBC 4 to “pull the plug on this criminal despot, who ranks with Robert Mugabe, Omar al-Bashir of Sudan and the Burmese military junta as one of the world’s most bloody tyrants…This Christmas in Iran, thousands of families are grief-stricken. Their loved ones have been jailed, tortured and executed.

Ahmadinejad is not comparable to Mugabe, al-Bashir and the Burmese regime as an individual. He is a handpicked figurehead of the Mullahs, as are all Iranian presidents.