GOP presidential hopefuls Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Ron Paul (R-TX) engaged in a heated exchange about Iran’s nuclear program during last night’s debate. The disagreement hinged on Bachmann’s statement that a recent International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report provided evidence that Iran is a “few months” away from building a nuclear weapon:

MICHELE BACHMANN: The problem would be the greatest under reaction in world history if we have an avowed madman who uses that nuclear weapon to wipe nations off the face of the Earth. And we have an IAEA report, that just recently came out, that said, literally, that Iran is within just months of being able to obtain that weapon. [...]

RON PAUL: There is no U.N. report that said that. It’s totally wrong what you just said. That is not true. They produced information that led you to believe that but they have no evidence. There’s been no enrichment.

BACHMANN: If we agree with that the United States’ people could be at risk.

Watch it:

CNN’s “Truth Squad” examined the exchange and concluded: “The IAEA report does not say that Iran is within months of being able to obtain a nuclear weapon. So Bachmann is wrong.” CNN also pointed out that Paul’s assertion that “they have no evidence” may also be wrong.

Indeed the IAEA flagged a number of dual use technologies under development by the Iranians that could have military applications. But neither the IAEA nor reporting on current U.S. intelligence estimates suggest that Iran is anywhere near having the capabilities to produce a nuclear weapon in a matter of months.

CNN isn’t the only news organization to fact check claims that Iran has committed to building a nuclear weapon. Republican presidential candidates are increasingly making statements suggesting that an Iranian nuclear weapon is all but a foregone conclusion and that U.S. led airstrikes or, according to Jon Huntsman, a ground invasion is the only way to prevent Iran from destabilizing the region with nukes.

Last week, The Washington Post’s ombudsman, Patrick Pexton, addressed a similar controversy and concluded, “[T]he IAEA report does not say Iran has a bomb, nor does it say it is building one, only that its multiyear effort pursuing nuclear technology is sophisticated and broad enough that it could be consistent with building a bomb.”

For the third time in two weeks, the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin today authored a blog post calling CAP and ThinkProgress “anti-Semitic” and “anti-Israel.” Prompted by an inquiry from Rubin, the Simon Wiesenthal Center has regrettably joined in the attacks on us. In a press release, the Wiesenthal Center said we “are guilty of dangerous political libels resonating with historic and toxic anti-Jewish prejudices.” While calling for raising the level of discourse on the one hand, the Wiesenthal Center makes a number of unfounded allegations. Let’s review them.

The SWC writes, “recent attacks on the Simon Wiesenthal Center by the Center for American Progress (CAP)-associated bloggers on ‘the far-right Simon Wiesenthal Center, which purports to promote tolerance, [but] basically called Obama a Nazi’ for saying that Israel should return to the pre-1967 borders.”

But the SWC omits what we were responding to — the fact that SWC attacked President Obama, claiming he wants Israel to “return to 1967 ‘Auschwitz’ borders.” Here is the headline of their May press release:

SWC: Israel Should Reject a Return to 1967 ‘Auschwitz’ Borders

We found the reference to Auschwitz to be gratuitous and inflammatory in the context of President Obama’s address. Leaving aside whether one considers the 1967 lines to be defensible, the fact is that is that President Obama did not call for Israel to return to those lines, only that they should be the basis for negotiations. Back in May, we highlighted a number of baseless right-wing attacks on Obama for his proposition that “a lasting peace” between the Israelis and the Palestinians “will involve two states” and that “the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines.” Obama’s pronouncement wasn’t new; President Bush in 2005 endorsed a two-state solution with negotiations based on the post-1949 Armistice, pre-1967 borders.

Also in its press release today, the Wiesenthal Center suggested that ThinkProgress was out of bounds when we “articulated the view that it is ‘factually inaccurate’ to assume that ‘Iran has a nuclear weapons program’ — and, in any case, that the danger posed by that program is exaggerated for political purposes.” This is a misrepresentation of what we wrote.

The SWC is referring to a recent ThinkProgress post titled “Quinnipiac Poll Poses Factually Inaccurate Questions Assuming Iran Has A Nuke Weapons Program.” In this post, we took issue with the pollsters’ reference to the existence of “Iran’s nuclear weapons program” in polling questions and noted that that assertion — a determination that neither the International Atomic Energy Agency nor the White House has made — may have impacted the poll’s outcome. In fact, the Washington Post’s ombudsman recently addressed this issue and agreed, warning reporters and policy makers of “[g]etting ahead of the facts on” Iran’s nuclear program.

It is incorrect to assert that we do not take the threat of Iran’s nuclear program seriously. As we noted last week, the Iranian issue is a strong point of concern for us. While we support the Obama administration’s position of “no options off the table,” we do not believe that a military strike would achieve those goals, and we will continue to push back against overheated rhetoric calling for war with Iran.

The Wiesenthal Center does some great work on tolerance that we support. But an effort to build partnerships can and must begin with an understanding that we have shared goals. We’re happy to join in a common pledge of raising the level of discourse. Rejecting the outrageous charges of anti-Semitism made against us lodged by Jennifer Rubin would be a good start.

Last month, ThinkProgress pointed to misleading polling questions in a Quinnipiac University poll. The questions referred to “Iran’s nuclear weapons program” when neither the UN’s nuclear agency nor conseus U.S. intelligence estimates have asserted concretely that Iran has made the decision to produce a nuclear weapon.

The important distinction between a “nuclear program” and a “nuclear weapons program” was made again, on Friday by the Washington Post’s ombudsman, Patrick B. Pexton. Pexton criticized the newspaper’s headline “Iran’s quest to possess nuclear weapons” and the subhead “Intelligence shows that Iran received foreign assistance to overcome key hurdles in acquiring a nuclear weapon, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.”

Pexton writes:

But the IAEA report does not say Iran has a bomb, nor does it say it is building one, only that its multiyear effort pursuing nuclear technology is sophisticated and broad enough that it could be consistent with building a bomb.

Iran steadfastly denies it is aiming for a nuclear bomb and says its program is aimed at civilian nuclear energy and research. Of course, Tehran could be lying. But no one knows for sure.

Pexton’s response, titled “Getting ahead of the facts on Iran,” concludes that:

In a Web-driven world, one bad headline can circle the globe in minutes and undermine The Post’s credibility. It can also play into the hands of those who are seeking further confrontation with Iran.

The campaign calling attention to the misleading headline was led by Just Foreign Policy, and Pexton gives them credit for being on the right side of an important issue. Pexton’s column on the dangers of rushing to judgement on Iran’s nuclear program is a valuable contribution to the debate over how best to confront the IAEA’s legitimate concerns.

Pexton is right: While Iran hawks speak in cocksure terms about the Iranian nuclear program, the newsroom of a major national newspaper has a responsibility to limit reporting on it to available facts.

The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin this week in two separate posts smeared CAP and its bloggers as “anti-Semitic” and “anti-Israel.” In her first post highlighting a recent Politico piece — which was originally titled “Liberal think tank harbors Israel haters” but subsequently changed to “Uncovering the anti-Israel enablers” — Rubin, without offering any evidence, said our “views are not merely anti-Israel, they are anti-Semitic” and that our writing is “fiction for Israel haters.” Rubin posted a follow-up story the next day, noting Progressive Policy Institute senior fellow Josh Block’s role in it and added, again without offering any evidence, that CAP bloggers promote “out-and-out anti-Semitic hate speech”:

Block is a self-identified Democratic activist whose pro-Israel credentials are well known. He’s actively worked for years to elect scores of Democrats. Of course he wants the anti-Israel left to be exposed. Of course he wants pro-Israel Democrats on record as distancing themselves from the CAP-housed bloggers who peddle in anti-Israel attacks and out-and-out anti-Semitic hate speech.

Again, Rubin offered no proof of these charges. But she promoted Block’s claim that “the European Union’s accepted definition of anti-Semitic hate speech applies to much of the CAP bloggers’ rhetoric, such as holding Israel to a dual standard while demonizing the Jewish state.” The “accepted definition” she links to is an undated EU Military Committee “working definition of antisemitism,” but Rubin presented no direct quotes from any ThinkProgress posts that meet any of the criteria the EU document listed.

We categorically reject these accusations. We don’t endorse the term “Israel firsters” or demonize the Jewish state on ThinkProgress. We are not anti-Semitic and this blog regularly promotes a strong relationship with Israel. Further, there is no anti-Semitic or anti-Israel “hate speech” written anywhere on this blog. We would never condone such language or beliefs, and in fact, we have made efforts to fight individuals who do engage in anti-Semitic discourse. For example, earlier this year, we reported that Jewish groups were “deeply concerned” that former Alaska governor Sarah Palin had used the anti-Semitic term “blood libel” to describe criticism by her detractors.

Washington Post ombudsman Patrick Pexton criticized Rubin last month for promoting a “brand of incendiary rhetoric [that] has gained too much purchase on the landscape of American politics.” Pexton added that the rhetoric Rubin promotes “pollutes our discourse and erodes the soil on which reasonable solutions and compromises can be built, whether at home or in the Middle East.”

The Washington Post should issue a correction to Rubin’s post. Please email, or tweet, politely asking that the Post correct Rubin’s article.

When Rachel Abrams, a board member at a right-wing pro-Israel group and wife of top Bush administration Mideast hand Elliott Abrams, called for Palestinian militants and their children to be made into “food for sharks,” something of a controversy erupted. The defense that Abrams was “clearly speaking about the terrorists” fell apart when she subsequently made the same call about this reporter and wrote that Palestinians of nearly any political stripe are terrorists.

The furor eventually extended all the way to the Washington Post after the neoconservative Post blogger Jennifer Rubin retweeted Abrams’ post. The Post’s ombudsman Patrick Pexton, deluged with complaints, wrote that he was “disappointed” with Rubin’s retweet, adding that it “did damage to The Post and the credibility that keeps it afloat.” The Post’s opinion page editor Fred Hiatt said that Pexton “is entitled to his views,” and refused to comment further on the ombudsman’s post.

Pexton is indeed “entitled to his views.” And, it seems, one of them might be that there exists at the Washington Post a double standard on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In a purported e-mail exchange with a reader, who posted the correspondence on an internet message board, Pexton wrote that he thought that if Rubin had retweeted a call to kill Israelis — instead of Palestinians — she would likely be fired from her job. The reader, who went by the name Joe Emersberger, wrote: “Simple question: if the rant had been directed against Israelis, do you think Rubin would have been fired by the Post?” Pexton, in the apparent exchange, wrote back:

Off the record, I think it’s quite possible. But the ombudsman does not hire or fire people here. I only comment.

Asked to confirm the authenticity of the e-mail correspondence, the Washington Post’s public relations department referred ThinkProgress to Pexton, who “operates independently.” Pexton didn’t deny the authenticity of the email and replied only by saying: “My blog post published Monday represents my full comments on this matter.” He hasn’t responded to a follow-up e-mail. Emersberger did not reply to an inquiry by press time. Pexton declared his comments “off the record,” but that confidence was broken by the apparent reader and the e-mails were made public.

Rubin, a Mideast hawk, cut her teeth at Pajamas Media and the neoconservative flagship Commentary — where Abrams’ brother, John Podhoretz, is the editor. This year, she went to Israel and the West Bank (also considering the latter part of Israel) on the dime of the Emergency Committee for Israel, where Abrams sits on the board. Rubin has a history of making errors and misrepresenting reported facts to fit her story. If this wasn’t enough to make the Post question the decision to hire her, perhaps one should not be so surprised that she can retweet calls for mass killings and keep her job — that is, as long as the comment is about killing Palestinians.