Ayatollahs: Thanks Michael!

According to author David Rothkopf over at Foreignpolicy.com, the ayatollahs ought to give thanks to Michael Jackson. His rationale? That Jackson’s sudden death effectively drew the media’s attention away from the street protests in Iran and lessened the pressure from the Western world on Iran’s government. Without the world’s focus squarely on them, the Revolutionary Guard’s Basiji militias managed to brutally silence the protestors, and Revolutionary Council even conducted a recount of 10% of the ballots cast (guess what? A-jad won!).

I think that Rothkopf is onto something. On Friday I posted a note on my Facebook page that I thought it was sad the media’s coverage of Jackson’s death was better in both quantity and quality than their coverage of the Iranian protests up to that point. The difference was most noticeable on CNN, where when it came to Michael, they actually had their reporters talking to people instead of relying on an endless string of ‘tweets’ like they had done with their coverage of Iran.

Rothkopf also notes that because the media spent a few days being all Michael all the time, they missed the passage of the Waxman-Markey Bill – also known as the American Clean Energy and Security Act (a.k.a. ACES, since these things have to have a snappy acronym) in the House of Representatives that will set caps on greenhouse gas emissions and funnel billions of dollars into creating “green” jobs.