This is about as clear as it gets that Glenn believes there are plausable [sic] explanations for Iran building civilian nuclear power reactors.

What Glenn actually said:

shouldn't newspapers refrain from repeating it as though it's proven and make clear to their readers that this is but one of several possibilities: one for which absolutely no evidence has been presented?

It's no mistake that you so casually substituted "plausible" for the actual word used "possible". That was so sly of you that it almost makes me want to reconsider the plausibility of you as a PhD candidate.

Glenn presented it as a plausable explanation. What the hell are you arguing? How have I mischaracterized his premise? His reasons for presenting that nonsense about Iraq gasoline imports? As a lawyer, he's concocting the alibi for his client. But Occam's Razor smacks his illogic in the face. The idea that Iran seeks nuclear civilian power is laughable.

And what's with your obsession with my education? I mentioned it in passing well over a year ago, and you seem to think it has great meaning. My arguments exist on their merits. Only in the pundit class do they make the appeal to authority fallacy, when idiots like George Will continue to get to spout nonsense because he wears a bowtie. The internet is the great equalizer, and I will never use my academic credentials as substitute for argument merit.

Another commenter pointed out that nuclear power doesn't power cars, proving Glenn's inane argument the laugh riot it is to anyone with critical acuity.

Anyone with "critical acuity" and two brain cells to bounce off each other knows that nuclear power produces electricity and that electric cars have been around now for quite some time. So all the above referenced commenter did was prove his own (and yours for quoting him) stupidity and disingenuousness.

Your Iranian electric car fantasy has to win the prize for funniest reach of the week. What next? Iran has nuclear powered videogames, and the Mullahs are obsessed with Halo 3?

Nobody is giving Iran the benefit of the doubt.

That's exactly what Glenn is doing. He's arguing Iran should be held to the same standard as any other country, Israel included. It is apologism of the worst sort. Iran is not a citizen of the United States that deserves Constitutional protections. It gets no benefit of anything. Our hope should only be this: America will act in whatever rational way protects American interests, protects our allies interests, and preserves democracy.

There is no court of law here. This is why Glenn is so far out of his league. Tossing around words like "hegemony" to sound smart wouldn't get a passing grade in freshman year comp.

Everyone here is concerned for obvious reasons. What we do want, and what Glenn is demanding from the media, is more than the same sort of lying hyperventilation we got before the Iraq war from the Bush administration.

Everyone here is clearly not concerned, with many espousing the hope that Iran gets the bomb. There is ZERO evidence the Obama administration would behave as foolishly as Bush did towards Iraq, not to mention the vast differences between the two countries to begin with. Glenn may want to tilt at windmills to take shots at the media, but in no rational world does anyone see Obama setting up a military invasion of Iran by engaging in year long propaganda campaigns. Not to mention the underlying realities of Iran versus Iraq are different as well.

And concerning Israel? I'm sure we all agree it deserves to exist without getting motar shells and bottle rockets lobbed over its borders. Would you likewise agree the Palestinians should enjoy the right to exist without having their land seized for Jewish Settlements, their homes bombed out, and their livelihoods routinely destroyed by the IDF?

I see the false equivalencies of the wingnut dancing in your eyes. Who started the current cycle of violence that began in 2000? This answer should be obvious. Even Greenwald would have to grant the facts of the Second Intifada, which caught Israel by surprise after a decade of lifting sanctions, arming the PLO and opening all borders.

The land Israel acquired in 1967 came about when four of its neighbors united to try to slaughter all Israelis by driving them into the sea. Israel has occupied the territories for 42 years not due to a war of its own choice, but a war that its enemies lost.

The Palestinians are suffering greatly. The Palestinians are also shut out by Egypt, who closed their border, and by Jordan, who revokes their Jordanian citizenship as harshly as Israel rejects their right to become Israelis.

The Palestinians are the victims from both sides. Jordan and Egypt are as complicit in their suffering as Israel is. And, when they decided to celebrate suicide bombings beginning in 2000, and elected Hamas in 2006, they became complict in their own fate.

Who does that better characterize than the people now leading Israel and its c. 200 nukes?

Judaism does not conceive of an afterlife the way Islam and Christianity do, and is ambiguous to the point of skepticism on the possibilities of there even being one (except for a few wonky Zohar poets).

There is also no heaven, no hell, no Jesus and no 70 virgins.

I agree that ultra-religious Jews have their own set of issues, mainly in the demonization and dehumanization of Arabs, but the notion of self destruction in the interest of rewards in the afterlife are simply not a part of Jewish theology.