perfidy

The TimesOnline reports that Iran has renewed its fatwa against author Salman Rushdie. Or not. After noting that the current Ayatollah guy did, in fact, call once again for Rushdie's death, the article goes on to say that

Analysts in Iran played down the remark, suspecting that Ayatollah Khamenei was referring to the fatwa against Rushdie in a historical context and was not calling for it to be implemented now. "This isn't shocking - it's nothing new," one Tehran-based analyst said.

Fascinating. Rushdie was called a "mahdour al-damm mortad," or "apostate from Islam whose blood may now be spilled with impunity," but it was a purely rhetorical construct devoid of greater meaning.

Wouldn't it kick ass if President Bush could do the same thing? In his just-past re-inauguration speech (or as he would put it, my cosmic "reset" button), Bush could have referred not to Kim Jong-Il, Michael Moore or married homosexuals, but to "Kim Jong-Il, backstabbing psychopath and future bullseye in the crosshairs of justice," "Michael Moore, self-promoting merchant of lies whose bitch-tits will surely soon be in a wringer," or "Massachusetts."

Wouldn't that be a hoot? And the best part is, since it's all rhetorical, no harm/no foul!!

Over to you, Buckethead, you maundering pile of cow dung!

Rhetorically speaking, that is!