Mahmoud In The City. Getting Down & Getting Gritty.
MayorBob.
Posted to Politics on Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 06:38:08 AM EST (promoted by port1080). RSS.
That international bad boy, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, blew into the Big Apple and turned Manhattan into his personal three-ring circus.
Perhaps it's because he's become one of the world's premier Holocaust deniers. Or, maybe it's the way he basically tells the world to "get stuffed" regarding the Iranian nuclear program. Then again, there might be something about his threat to "wipe Israel off the map" which got on a few people's nerves. Whatever, it all seemed so easy to just say no to a request to visit Ground Zero while he had a few minutes to kill in town.
The official reason for Ahmadinejad's visit to the US was to address the opening of this session of the United Nations. But, before his appearance on the East Side, it was up to Morningside Heights for a bravura performance at Columbia University. He said the holocaust body counts shouldn't be accepted as gospel, that Iran doesn't have any homosexuals, and women are treated really, really fair. The reaction of 600 people in the auditorium for Ahmandinejad's speech ranged from booing to laughter while protesters outside screamed unkind things and carried signs, "Hitler Lives" prominent among them. This came after Columbia's president Lee Bollinger said he "seemed like a petty and cruel dictator" to a lot of people. Ahmadinejad's remarks to the UN are expected to pretty much track with previous statements.
So, he's about to blow town and head back to Teheran. We've had him up close and personal for the past few days. Are his political positions better understood? Is his message any less abrasive? Is it time to lighten up on him and Iran or is it time to say, enough already, batten down the hatches and play rough? In addition to having to listen to Ahmadinejad's peculiar view of the way things are in the world, New Yorkers have had to survive rotten traffic. Believe it or not, this is an area in which Ahmadinejad qualifies as an expert.
