ISN'T THAT KIND? - AT 10:01 A.M. ET:  From AP: 

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran's foreign minister assured his visiting Japanese counterpart that the case of an American journalist imprisoned in Tehran for allegedly spying for the United States will get a fair review on appeal.

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said 32-year-old Roxana Saberi's appeal will be "reviewed justly and humanely." He spoke at a joint news conference Saturday with Japan's Hirofumi Nakasone, who expressed concern over the case during his visit to Iran.

Saberi is a dual Iranian-American citizen was born in Fargo, North Dakota. Her father is Iranian and her mother is Japanese. She was arrested in January in Tehran and sentenced last month to eight years in prison after a one-day trial behind closed doors. Her case has raised an international outcry and her lawyer in Iran has appealed the verdict.

COMMENT:  What a game is being played!  This woman is simply a bargaining chip.  She will be released in a grand gesture of "good will" or "humanitarianism."  The grovelers in the Obama administration will "welcome" the release as a sign of what the president's new on-our-knees policy can bring.  And the in-the-tank press will forget to point out that she never should have been imprisoned in the first place.

May 3, 2009