“Both Barrels”
Allah characterized Bollinger’s description of Ahmadinejad as a “petty and cruel dictator” as the “money line.” It’s not. I am frankly stunned at the words President Bollinger used: deplore, no implication of “weakness of resolve to resist those ideas” or “naivete about the very real dangers inherent in such ideas,” dishonorable, no “rights of the speaker” but only “our rights to listen and speak,” “know thine enemies,” “mind of evil,” brutal, targets of persecution, intolerable, dangerous propaganda, ridiculous, “brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated,” absurd, “defy historical truth,” state sponsor of terror, fanatical mindset. A very clear, forceful summation of Iran’s offenses that I couldn’t believe he would have given, to Ahmadinejad’s face, until I watched it myself, but Xrlq’s right: It was both barrels.
I disagree with Allah’s characterization of Bollinger’s speech as a Colbert maneuver. Colbert could count on nothing but support from his audience at the press dinner. It was a peacock move that succeeded about as well as anybody would who attempted to go so far outside his own milieu. I think it’s far from clear that Bollinger thought he could count on the same support, and as the cheers as Ahmadinejad begins to speak make clear, he certainly did not have undivided support even in the room. Pity the poor little teenagers, so full of their own education and confident in their years numbering more or less twenty, resenting being told how to judge Ahmadinejad more than the crimes of the Iranian government on people just like them in Iran.
As for Ahmadinejad, could he possibly have had any idea of this at the time he accepted the invitation to speak?
6 comments »
Copy link for RSS feed for comments on this post or for TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>
“Whether that’s because Bollinger seized the opportunity to humiliate him a bit or whether it’s just alumni groovin’ on Mahdi’s good vibes, no one can say.”
No one can say. Except Allah can say, “[Bollinger] had to do it to save face”.
Sometimes the caricatures of people with whom we strongly disagree fall apart in the face of contrary evidence. [Caveat: I’m frequently guilty of this mistake as well.] But… no one can really say for sure. :-)
Anyway, whatever his reasons (for, really, who can say what they were?), good on Ballinger for saying what he said. The source of the commentary should not decrease the truth of the words uttered.
One of the few comments over there that didn’t cause me to projectile vomit points out that, technically, Ahmadinejad is not a dictator in the sense that Saddam was; he’s the political mouthpiece for the ruling Iranian theocracy. He’s also a loon. See, in this country we get to say stuff like that about people in high places without fear of being killed.
“Welcome to America, U Dink.” (Not for use on Oregon license plates.)
Comment by Norm — September 25, 2007 @ 11:50 am
Grammar Islamo-fascist…
Hello, its me
From today’s Washington Post, a bit of Bollinger’s bollocks as he tried to deflect criticism about giving a tyrant a podium from which to spout his propaganda. Bollinger used the time-honored tactic of ‘faint praise&#…
Trackback by docweaselblahg — September 25, 2007 @ 12:58 pm
To DocWeaselBlahg: I read the post you trackbacked, and since comments are closed there, I have to say you completely misunderstood me. I am saying I do *not* think Bollinger’s remarks were a stunt. At all.
And if it makes you feel any better, I for one definitely would rate your site X.
Comment by Anwyn — September 25, 2007 @ 4:44 pm
yeah I know, it was a lame attempt at baiting you. I need to make my irony or sarcasm or whatever it is more broad I guess. I still enjoyed your post.
Sorry the comments are closed, spammers are killing me and its a hassle to constantly moderate comments, so I surrendered. I think its because we usually rule the wordpress “tits” tag page and spammers love blogs with that tag.
http://wordpress.com/tag/tits/
We have a big forum, people comment there. Thanks for the X though, I like your blog and will b-roll you, due to our NSFW content I certainly wouldn’t expect or advise reciprocation. :)
Comment by docweasel — September 25, 2007 @ 7:42 pm
Spammers love that tag? No WAY. I’m guessing Akismet can’t keep up with the attacks you must get.
As far as baiting me, well … you baited me into looking at some pron, right enough. Beyond that, no, I didn’t get the sarcasm, alas. Thanks for the blogroll.
Heh.
Comment by Anwyn — September 25, 2007 @ 8:58 pm
We almost always top the “tits” tag, dunno why.
docweaselblahg is a group blog with all the contributors to the main docweaselsite posting under the same name, instead of a regular group blog where there are individual accounts. We just thought it would make it more interesting to see many differing posts come from a single ‘entity’.
Comment by docweasel — September 26, 2007 @ 12:04 am