What a nice day in the Ozarks. It was sunny, a few clouds, a slight breeze and 83 degrees. Around 7:30 P.M. the almost full moon was a pale, milky, grey color and the clouds passing in front of had a purple tint in the fading light. Now, (10:30 P.M.) the moon is completely obscured by solid cloud cover; I can’t even locate it. The air is thick but cool and still.
A few final thoughts on Ahmadinejad at Columbia:
I am still hearing people that were offended that Ahmadinejad was “invited” to speak at Columbia. I think that these are situations where there are no hard and fast rules. Having said that, if this were a case in which the purpose of Ahmadinejad’s trip was to speak at the University then, I think that an “invitation” would not be appropriate. Because he was here to speak at the U.N., I viewed the Columbia visit as a chance for rebuttal.
When I was reading transcripts yesterday, my thinking was; good, now this guy is on the record looking bad. It looks good on paper. When I saw some of the video from Columbia, it became apparent that Ahmadinejad was received better than I assumed. Frankly, I was stunned by the amount of applause he got.
Two points about the applause. First, I think it was reactionary; it is my opinion that this particular audience is not happy with our own government and that the applause was borne of that, rather than support for Ahmadinejad. Second, the applause was not about anything of substance. The biggest reaction was when Ahmadinejad spoke directly after Lee Bollinger made the bush league mistake of making his somewhat scathing remarks before Ahmadinejad had the chance to dig his own grave, so to speak. So, Ahmadinejad gets up and says that Bollinger is being rude and the audience applauds. It’s grade school stuff; Ahmadinejad’s way of avoiding the allegations and the audience, evidently, bought it. Bollinger seems like he is one of those guys, without street sense, that stews about an upcoming confrontation and when the moment arrives, ends up looking bad even though his case is sound.
Unfortunately in the digital age, the video is the public record and the audience reaction is forever part of that record.
Was it just me or, did you guys think that Ahmadinejad had a very Borat like expression and reaction when the audience booed after he said there were no gays in Iran? And then, he tells a joke in which the punch line is about world leaders who are retarded!
The serious side of that kind of stuff is, that it becomes very apparent how deep the cultural divide is. When Ahmadinejad says that, “we don’t have that phenomenon”, referring to gay people, what does he mean? Does he thinks that executing gay people is a public service? That by ridding the society of them, he is protecting children from their influence? Beyond looking like Borat when the audience reacts, he seems genuinely surprised that we think that gay people have human rights.
When pressed about the reality that the holocaust happened, he shuffles and says something about, “that was in Europe”. He sees “the Zionist regime” as something that was foisted upon his part of the world, something that had nothing to do with his culture. At the same time he seems ignorant, unaware of the deep wounds and sociological impact of the holocaust.
The Daily Mail has this headline; “Propaganda victory for Iran’s President Ahmadinejad in New York”. A lot of our own pundits are saying similar things.
Sitting here in fly over country, it’s hard for me to see it that way. I have a hard time seeing that we got snowed by this guy and that he had a “propaganda victory”. Just because he is afforded an opportunity to spout his propaganda doesn’t mean that it is effective. That’s what we do here; we let people spout, say anything.
Bollinger could have handled the situation better, no doubt. But, how many people were even talking about Ahmadinejad a couple of weeks ago? Now, Whoopi Goldberg is talking about him on T.V.
So, in the end, I’m glad that the Columbia event went down because, I feel that, in the end, Iran will have to be addressed, possibly confronted on several issues; human rights, nuclear development, terrorism, Israel and oil. If you are one who feels that a confrontation can be avoided through diplomacy, I would say this; not if we (the public, not the politicians) don’t know who we are dealing with and, not if we aren’t having dialogue, about who we are dealing with, amongst ourselves.
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