From a Daily Kos post meditating on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia University (h/t LGF):
I know I’m a Jewish lesbian and he’d probably have me killed. But still, the guy speaks some blunt truths about the Bush Administration that make me swoon…
[...] I want to be very clear. There are certainly many things about Ahmadinejad that I abhor — locking up dissidents, executing of gay folks, denying the fact of the Holocaust, potentially adding another dangerous nuclear power to the world and, in general, stifling democracy. Even still, I can’t help but be turned on by his frank rhetoric calling out the horrors of the Bush Administration and, for that matter, generations of US foreign policy preceding.
She later claimed it was satire, but I think we all know better. Anyway, it’s not like she was the only one impressed by Ahmadinejad.
The left anymore is putting a lot of stock in the idea that the enemy (Iran and Islamists in general) of their enemy (Bush) is their friend. This in spite of the fact that they know the former would gladly slit their useful idiot throats.
Update 9/28/07 at 9:55am: Jonah Goldberg this morning has a terrific essay on A’jad’s Columbia visit, free speech, and cowardice masking as principle. Ed Morrissey expands on Goldberg’s essay here. Key point:
Freedom of speech does not confer upon anyone the right to be published. Nor does it impose on other citizens the duty to listen or to acknowledge the speech. Most importantly, it does not grant an immunity from criticism for the speech one gives — because that would also constrain free speech.
One would think this obvious. But since so many universities and editorial writers keep insisting that every tyrant and crackpot with an America-hating chip on his shoulder is entitled to a forum, it’s a point worth repeating.
