AP implies Chirac must be mentally incompetent not to join Iran war-mongering. [View All]

[femmedem]

This has got to be one of the most biased AP stories I've ever read.

Did French President Jacques Chirac misspeak? Is he, at age 74 and in the waning months of his second and likely last term, losing his political touch, even his mental vigor? Or did he simply voice a fear that a nuclear-armed Iran may be a foregone conclusion?

An astounded world asked those questions after the French leader asserted it would not be “very dangerous” if Iran had one or two nuclear weapons, and that its capital, Tehran, would be “razed” if it used them on Israel — assertions that forced Chirac into an embarrassing retraction.

Chirac, who was hospitalized for a week in 2005 for a suspected minor stroke, appeared distracted at times, grasping for names and dates, during an interview Monday, according to the International Herald Tribune, the New York Times and a French magazine, Le Nouvel Observateur.

The newspapers said his hands shook slightly and that he read from prepared, large-print notes when discussing climate change, the interview's planned main focus.

http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=2c268757-30a2-477e-894b-6b65af11c731