Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

“I’m a dinner jacket.” That’s how someone instructed Tim Pawlenty “the other day” to say the name of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the governor told his weekly radio audience Friday morning. The presidential prospect also tried to show he’s no empty suit on international affairs, twice pronouncing an Iranian nuclear-weapons program a certainty. 

In the biggest parallel yet to Minnesota’s still-disputed Al Franken-Norm Coleman election for U.S. Senate, Iran’s Guardian Council has now proposed to calm presidential-election protests with a partial recount. “We are ready to recount those boxes that presidential candidates claim to have been doctored,” a spokesman said. 

Absentee voters complaining their ballots went uncounted. Charges of ballots disappearing in the rear of a vehicle. Suspicions that the top election official skewed the system to benefit his favorite. Minnesota’s senate contest? Sure. But over the weekend, gripes long familiar to observers of the Coleman-Franken fracas got a fresh airing in Iran’s disputed presidential [...]