The President of Iran spoke at Columbia University, and the reaction across the blogosphere is mighty and loud.

Michael Not Mike has a photo essay and wants to know why Ahmadinejad got different cosmetic treatment than,well, everyone else.

Lesley has another issue altogether

There are a lot of people around these here parts that are so unbelievably myopic, that I can hardly stand to live here any more. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was visiting the UN and New York, was saying preposterous things and all the attention whores around here seem to care about is whether or not there’s racism in Jena, Louisiana. There is. Now can you guys look past your own dicks for a moment to ponder something that’s got a much higher possible impact on this country and this world?

Sharon Cobb points out that in Iran, the “President” is no big deal

Ask your leaders to address Ali Khamenei, instead of getting in a pissing contest with Ahmadinejad. He’s for public relations. And even when he’s severely criticized,
he’s doing a wonderful job of distracting America and Americans from the real danger.

In fact, look at it this way. Think of Ahmadinejad as Goebbels to Khamenei’s Hitler.
In that context, he’s doing a very good job.

Eric at Pound Of Thoughts is NOT an Ahmadinejad fan

I didn’t get to watch the speeches that Neo-Hitler gave yesterday, and I will probably search for them when I get home tonight on Youtube. But, according to The Right Wing Nuthouse, several “academians” - if you can call them that - actually cheered some of what “Iwantajihad” had to say.

Goldni has several issues with Iran’s President and his speech at Columbia.

The man’s a lunatic, to be sure. And his Holocaust denial is particularly grating to me–he uses a new kind of denial. Rather than outright denying that the Holocaust happened, he tries to cast doubt on it, by saying things like “there’s nothing known as absolute”. The intent is the same though.

…

With the audience laughing derisively, he continued: “In Iran we do not have [homosexuality]. I don’t know who’s told you that we have this.”

LOL. He thinks they don’t have homosexuals because they executed them all! And the audience here reacted appropriately–getting laughed at and not taken seriously must have KILLED Ahmadinejad.

Mark Rose thinks the reactions to Ahmadinejad show signs of promise for the future of The Left.

When I first heard that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was going to speak at Columbia University, I thought it was typical of the left to prop up some pipsqueak Third World thug dictator, all the while comdeming their own country and their own president, but it turns out that My-mood received a tongue-lashing from Columbia’s president, Lee Bollinger.
… Perhaps there is a glimmer of hope over there on the left, after all.

From what I gather, there were two main issues with what Ahmadinejad had to say: 1) He denied the Holocaust 2)He denied the existence of homosexuality in Iran.

Nathan Moore compares and contrasts the reactions to those two assertions, and draws a further conclusion.

By now everyone knows that Columbia has invited Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak on its campus, a Holocaust denier, religious Islamist fundamentalist, and proud advocate of Jewish destruction. Just last year the leadership of Columbia University viewed such positions as less offensive than the United States’ military’s recruitment policies.

In short, Jewish genocide is less offensive than “don’t ask, don’t tell”.

Really?

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