Among "recurring themes" in media coverage about Baha'is, the report said, is that they are "anti-Islamic, " a "deviant" and "cult-like" sect, agents of Zionism, spies for Israel and the West, morally corrupt and an influence in the shah's government, toppled in 1979.

CNN: Baha'is accuse Iran of stoking hatred in media

There's always been an undercurrent of xenophobia in the "Die Hard" series, but this movie's crude insistence on a corrupt, morally bankrupt Russia betrays simple-minded nostalgia for those Cold War days when the Berlin Wall demarcated good and evil.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

How enlightened we are, smug in the knowledge that our method for feeding at the public trough is morally superior to the benighted practices of corrupt foreigners.

FORBES: Making Sure Corruption Remains "Made In America"