WSJ's Henninger suggested Ahmadinejad's views "correlate with the views of whoever in the CIA leaked the prisons' existence"

Summary: Wall Street Journal deputy editorial page editor Daniel Henninger suggested that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's assertion that "secret prisons in Eastern Europe" do not comport with laws, religious values, or human rights "correlate[s] with the views of whoever in the CIA leaked the prisons' existence" to The Washington Post.

In his May 12 Wall Street Journal column, Journal deputy editorial page editor Daniel Henninger suggested that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's assertion that "secret prisons in Eastern Europe" do not comport with laws, religious values, or human rights "correlate[s] with the views of whoever in the CIA leaked the prisons' existence" to The Washington Post, which first reported on the prisons in November 2005. Henninger was referring to Ahmadinejad's recent letter to President Bush, in which he wrote, "I could not correlate the abduction of a person, and him or her being kept in secret prisons, with the provisions of any judicial system."

From Henninger's May 12 column:

Among the "significant challenges" to getting a coherent U.S. message out to the Arab world, one might include the odd recent habit of employees at the CIA to leak to the press key elements of the government's war on Islamic terror. What conclusion do you think might be reached by an 18-year-old Yemeni reading online the details of these leaks about U.S. officials "confirming" wiretaps and secret terrorist prisons? He might reasonably conclude that major parts of the American government don't want to wage a war on terror and think the war is merely the obsession of the country's president.

This conclusion found its way into Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "diplomatic" letter to President Bush. "European investigators have confirmed the existence of secret prisons in Europe," Iran's president wrote. "I could not correlate the abduction of a person, and him or her being kept in secret prisons, with the provisions of any judicial system." Any reason to believe this also doesn't correlate with the views of whoever in the CIA leaked the prisons' existence?

Henninger is only the most recent conservative commentator to equate Ahmadinejad's stated views with those of various Americans. Fox News host John Gibson and Weekly Standard executive editor Fred Barnes equated Ahmadinejad's letter with Democratic talking points and progressive positions. Radio host Rush Limbaugh claimed the letter contained "some liberal Hollywood Jewish people talking point."

—S.S.M.