A week after Saberi returned to the U.S. following her 100-day imprisonment, she and her parents met with Clinton at the State Department. At a conference in the Netherlands in March, Clinton broke with the usual diplomatic isolation of Iran and passed a letter supporting Saberi's release directly to the country's delegation.

Yesterday, Clinton told reporters:

This was a matter of great concern to our country, certainly to the Obama administration, to me personally, not only as secretary of state, but as a mother. My heart went out to Roxana and to her parents every single day.

Saberi thanked Clinton, President Obama, and the American people and others around the world for lobbying for her freedom. She said:

When I found out that I had the support while I was in prison, I gained a lot of strength and hope, and I didn't feel so alone anymore. It's wonderful to be back in the United States. I'm very proud to be an American, just as I'm proud of my Japanese and Iranian heritage. It's wonderful to be back.

The 32-year-old journalist had been living in Iran since 2003, but was convicted of spying for the U.S. and sentenced to eight years in prison following her arrest in January. Earlier this month, an Iranian appeals court reduced her sentence to a two-year jail term suspended for five years on grounds that she couldn't be punished for cooperating with a hostile nation since the U.S. and Iran are not at war, according to The New York Times.

In the Press TV account of Saberi and Clinton's meeting, the state-run news agency noted that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also wrote a letter to judiciary officials asking for a fair trial. The articles stated that Saberi "had confessed that she had been engaged in acts of espionage by gaining access to classified documents," but still hasn't thanked the Iranian officials who released her.

Clinton Celebrates Journalist's Release From Iran [CNN]
Saberi Thanks Clinton For Support [The New York Times]
Saberi Thanks Clinton For Pressuring Iran [Press TV]

Lebanese poet and provocateuse Joumana Haddad's eroto-anatomical-literary magazine, whose focus is the human body, has been making waves since before it launched, prompting charges of "blatant vulgarity and obscenity." As the Washington Post's update tells us, since the magazine's launch, blogger reactions have run the gamut from "God bless her, there must be some angels protecting her," to the chilling, "She is the perfect model of a person who has to be stoned to death."

But the proof, as anyone at 4 Times Square can tell you, is in the sales. Now in its second issue, the quarterly is selling like gangbusters, not just in secular Lebanon - a traditional center of liberal thought with relatively loose censorship laws - but in surrounding regions, especially Saudi Arabia. Haddad has always cited the venerable tradition of erotic writing as an impetus for launching Jasad, and is proud that her magazine doesn't have a Western equivalent - although she acknowledges that it's less needed in more sexually open societies. Of course, one could easily argue that the publication wouldn't exactly hack it here, especially in such a challenging print marketplace. The current issue contains "themes" like "The Penis - between His and Hers," "The ABC of plucking pussy hair," and an essay titled "My First Time" as well as regular features "Eros in the Kitchen" and "The Voyeur's Corner." Art ranges from (naked) Egon Schiele portraits to (naked) 18th century tableaux. Truthfully, it feels more like an enthusiastically-executed, Anais-Nin-worshiping, vaguely-conceived college publication than a ready-for-prime-time glossy.

But as reaction shows, the stakes are much higher, and whatever one thinks of the content, the magazine's existence shows a lot of courage on Haddad's part. But does the publication's obvious desire to shock and enrage do its purpose a disservice? Haddad must be aware that a good part of her readership isn't exactly reading it for the articles - although, like Playboy, I guess it's got that pretext on its side. But in a region where, just a border away, some women are disenfranchised, can such blatant provocation really do anything other than strengthen walls, rather than make hairline cracks? Haddad would say yes.

Jasad [Official Site]
Beirut's 'Body' Language Pioneer [Washington Post]

Earlier: Lebanese Magazine Advocates Nudity, Change

• McCain and his staff have smartly given up trying to win an electoral mandate and are pursuing a "narrow-victory strategy." What that means is that they have no intention of doing anything other than personally attacking Obama for the next 18 days in order to freak people out that they can squeak out an Electoral College victory rather than a popular one. You know, like in 2000. [NY Times]
• Which is probably why Sarah Palin is flouncing around telling people that they prefer the "real America" which everyone who isn't voting for John McCain isn't a part of. [Huffington Post]
• If that wasn't clear enough for you, Republican Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann called for an investigation into the un-American activities of all self-professed liberals. [Think Progress]

• And a Palin supporter beat up a reporter at a rally for having the audacity to report that there were protesters around outside. "Real" America FTW. [News & Record]
• The United State Supreme Court effectively stopped the Ohio GOP's efforts to throw 200,000 voters off the rolls before election day. [Huffington Post]
• Conservative talk show host Lee Rodgers thinks that "many of the women who are professed leaders of the feminist movement in this country, and they're a bunch of hags. They couldn't get laid in a men's prison, let's be honest about it." How long do we think it's been since Lee Rodgers got laid? I mean, without paying for it, obviously, that doesn't count. [Media Matters]
• Oh, and French President Nicky Sarkozy is suggesting that it may be time to renegotiate Bretton Woods. Sarah Palin said, "Ooh, I'd bet Todd would be a good logger" and all of France simultaneously smacked their foreheads and went to church to pray for an Obama win. [Washington Post]

• This is an actual direct mail piece from the Virginia Republican Party, encouraging people to vote against "evil." I encourage people to vote against evil, too — the kind of evil that would stoke racial fears to win an election. [Mark Halperin]
• Also, please vote against the kind of evil that thinks it's funny to put a picture of Obama on a fake food stamp adorned with fried chicken and watermelon. That would be the evil that comes out of the California group Chaffey Community Republican Women [The Press Enterprise]
• Or the kind that suggests that Obama's mother would've aborted him had she the legal right to, so he should consider taking away that right from other people. [National Review]

• Joe The Plumber isn't really named Joe, isn't really a licensed plumber, wouldn't really pay more in taxes under Obama's plan — but he might have to pay his back taxes now. Naughty, naughty. Oh, and because his name is misspelled on his voter registration card, he'd be stopped from casting his ballot if he was a newbie. [NY Times, Politico]
• The Secret Service is now actively separating the press from McCain supporters, which is rather a broad interpretation of their mission to protect the candidate. [Washington Post]
• Unsurprisingly, the FBI and Justice Department are investigating ACORN "for any evidence of a coordinated national scam." Because that's likely. [Huffington Post]
• That lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, who the New York Times said had an affair with John McCain broke her silence and said that she didn't. She thinks she got dragged into it because of some bad feelings between former McCain aide John Weaver and current McCain aide Rick Davis, but who knows. [National Journal]
• But just to end things on an upbeat note for once, go read the inspiring story of civil rights leader Andrew Young who got to cast a ballot for a black Presidential candidate today. It's sweet. [Traverse City Record Eagle]

• Stephen Price is the senior writer for the Tallahassee Democrat (no relation to the Party) and tends to stick out just a touch when in a scrum of mostly-white political reporters. Last week at a McCain rally, he stuck out so much that a McCain staffer asked him and his legitimate press credential to leave. McCain's staff says it's because he was a state reporter, since, you know, McCain doesn't care that much about his local and state press coverage. [HuffPo, HuffPo]
• By the way, the Swift Boat guys are back and now they've got books! And mass e-mails! And virtually no credibility! [Washington Post]
• Speaking of lacking in credibility, House Republicans are claiming that their protest against House Speaker Pelosi's decision not to bring a drilling bill to the floor is lowering gas prices! [HuffPo]

• In still more barely believable news, apparently the letter that was the only supposed documented link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda is probably a CIA forgery. When do we stop calling the intelligence there "faulty" and start calling it "manufactured"? Was that letter, at least, manufactured in a mobile lab?[Washington Independent]
• But, hey, at least Stephen Price isn't a Japanese reporter trying to cover the Beijing Olympics. In China, they don't "escort" you away from what you're trying to report on, they beat you up and haul you off in violation of China's supposed agreement on press freedoms. But they're really sorry! They promise it won't happen again until at least tomorrow! [Boston Globe]
• And to make us seem more sorry, a U.S. Olympic Committee official reportedly bitched out the four cyclists who arrived in China for the Olympics today wearing the face masks issued to them... by the USOC. What, did Bush get to appoint a bunch of incompetent assholes there, too? [NY Times]