Democracy On the March in Iran

In what is perhaps today's biggest story, bigger even than the Garner-Affleck marriage or the 600+ pound catfish, we learn that some of the Americans who were held hostage in Iran during the big-H Hostage Crisis are convinced that the newly-elected president of Iran was a key hostage-taker. (hostagizer? hostager?) Yes indeed, inspired by the models of democracy we've established in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Iranians have gone and elected a guy who may well have been one of the key captors in the 444-day Iranian Hostage Crisis.

Now, in the interest of fairness, not all of the hostages agree. But five of the 52 Americans who were held hostage seem thoroughly convinced that he's the guy. Just in case that situation was not enough to cause your ironic outrage senses to twitch, events developed later in the day to cause inflamed swelling and burning. You see, the idea that President-Elect Ahmadinejad was one of the hostage-takers was refuted by...some of the actual, admitted hostage-takers. Several of them were contacted, and flatly denied that the President-Elect was one of them. I don't know about you, but nothing in this situation screams credibility to me like the words of former militant, anti-American students responsible for holding Americans hostage for over a year. "Trust me when I tell you, Great Satan, this guy was not involved."

I never really gave much thought to what happened to the people responsible for the hostage situation, but if anyone had ever asked me, I would probably have assumed Reagan quietly dispatched some CIA goons to make sure they all suffered some freak acccidents. Somehow, the thought that decades later they'd be readily available for interviews by news organizations would not have been something I'd have considered.

Irony done wandered off and died somewhere, today, I think.