Ahmadinejad Speaks!

I'm glad they let the man speak. On the one hand he's defiant and is being made out to be a threat (I'm not scared). On the other hand, he's such a maroon!

In response to one audience, Ahmadinejad denied he was questioning the existence of the Holocaust: "Granted this happened, what does it have to do with the Palestinian people?"

I get his point on this issue - not the part about denying the Holocaust but I sympathize with the millions of Palestinians who were displaced in order to make way for the creation of the state of Israel. It's taken me a while to come to that position but I'm leaning towards the Jimmy Carter view of this situation.

But then he said he was defending the rights of European scholars, an apparent reference to a small number who have been prosecuted under national laws for denying or minimizing the Holocaust.

"There's nothing known as absolute," he said.

He reiterated his desire to visit ground zero to express sympathy with the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, but then appeared to question whether al-Qaida was responsible.

"Why did this happen? What caused it? What conditions led to it?" he said. "Who truly was involved? Who was really involved and put it all together?"

Asked about executions of homosexuals in Iran, Ahmadinejad said the judiciary system executed violent criminals and high-level drug dealers, comparing them to microbes eliminated through medical treatment. Pressed specifically about punishment of homosexuals, he said: "In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country."

With the audience laughing derisively, he continued: "In Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have this."

Nothing one can say or do but ROTFL like the audience!!! Right, buddy!

Bollinger was strongly criticized for inviting Ahmadinejad to Columbia, and had promised tough questions in his introduction to Ahmadinejad's talk. But the strident and personal nature of his attack on the president of Iran was startling.

"You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated," Bollinger told Ahmadinejad about the leader's Holocaust denial.

I think he's both: brazenly provocative AND astonishingly uneducated! Kinda reminds me of our own "commander in chief ..."

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