Bollinger Redeems Himself
No, I don’t think it will accomplish much, if anything, in the grand scheme of things. Still, it was worth it to see a dictator sit and take the insults he never has to worry about hearing in his own country, or even in the UN. A part of me really wants to believe that Ahmadinejad himself now realizes that accepting this invitation was a mistake.
September 24th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
A part of me really wants to believe Bollinger had that planned when this started.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
I’m sure he did. Like everybody else, I expected the obligatory “we don’t condoned repressive dictators, but….” pseudo-criticism. Instead, he went after the guy with both barrels. This wasn’t business, it was personal. Seriously, he asked the guy just about every tough insult-thinly-disguised-as-a-question that I’d have asked him myself, save one: “Look at all those nice men in uniform with guns, all here for your protection courtesy of American taxpayers. Now give them one good reason why they should not turn those guns on you, take you hostage, and hold you for, oh, I don’t know how long. Let’s say 444 days, that’s a nice round number.”
September 24th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
I broke rule #1: I commented without actually watching Bollinger yet, though I watched a bit of the rest of it. Can’t watch it until I’m out of sight and earshot of Mr. Four Years Old.
September 25th, 2007 at 12:29 am
“Now give them one good reason why they should not turn those guns on you, take you hostage, and hold you for, oh, I don’t know how long. Let’s say 444 days, that’s a nice round number.”
“Because we don’t have gays like you. I had the balls to do it and you don’t. You have painted yourselves into a philosophical corner and I’m just the guy to slice little pieces off of you, cook them and eat them.”
September 25th, 2007 at 12:29 am
Watched it now. I’m stunned.
September 25th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
[...] 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. [...]