My Dinner with Ahmadinejad (Journalists and Academics dine while U.S. troops die)

Time Magazine ^ | September 26, 2007 | Richard Stengel

[2ndDivisionVet]

The invitation was on creamy stationery with fancy calligraphy: The Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran "requests the pleasure" of my company to dine with H.E. Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The dinner is at the Intercontinental Hotel — with names carefully written out at all the place settings around a rectangular table. There are about 50 of us, academics and journalists mostly. There's Brian Williams across the room, and Christiane Amanpour a few seats down. And at a little after 8pm, on a day when he has already addressed the U.N., the evening after his confrontation at Columbia, a bowing and smiling Mahmoud Admadinejad glides into the room.

This is now an annual ritual for the President of Iran. Every year, during the U.N. General Assembly in New York, he plots out a media campaign that — in its shrewdness, relentlessness, and quest for attention — would rival Angelina Jolie on a movie junket. And like any international figure, Mr. Ahmadinejad hones his performance for multiple audiences: in this case, the journalists and academics who can filter his speech and ideas for a wider American audience.

The format of the evening is curious. In his calm and fluent voice — "dear friends," he calls us — he requests that we not ask questions, but make statements, so that he can react to them in a form of dialogue. The academics are not shy. They make statements not only about the need for dialogue and reconciliation, but castigate the Iranian government for chilling press freedoms and for arresting Iranian-American scholars who were only trying to foster better relations between America and Iran. Throughout, Ahmadinejad is courtly, preternaturally calm, and fiercely articulate.

[fish hawk]

If he was “clean” along with “articulate”, he is qualified to run for the Presidency, right?

[onguard]

I think the writer of the article did a pretty good job, actually. The reporter wrote about an event most people would never have known about, described the forum, the atmosphere, the forms of questions (?), the manner of the speaker, etc...It was really pretty informative. It didn’t seem that the Time writer was an admirer, just a reporter. The Iranian president usually makes a fool of himself quite nicely without any help from the press.

[BusterBear]

It reminds me of the Nazis who would lock a town’s residents in a house and burn it down - and then repair to their luxurious headquarters where they would have a fine dinner with schnapps and lots of gemutlichkeit. Maybe some Mozart as an accompaniment.

[Fledermaus]

Frankly, I don’t find much difference in the views, opinions and attitudes between Ahmadinejad and leftist journalist.

[bray]

David Gregory had his One on One with Ahmanutjob a bit later.

Pray for W and Our Troops

[KingofZion]

Sadly the pandering journalists make the president of columbia u look good

[Blind Eye Jones]

Like the movie “My Dinner with Andre” this is just surreal talk from a nut case. The charm is there (supposedly) and the heady insanity of both the nut case and crowd.

[synbad600]

Is it possible to ‘read’ her show the next day, a la Rush?

[Roberts]

“The format of the evening is curious. In his calm and fluent voice — “dear friends,” he calls us — he requests that we not ask questions, but make statements, so that he can react to them in a form of dialogue.”

And the lapdog “journalists and academics” allow the Hitler of the Middle East to avoid the difficult task of answering a hard question. It looks like the “creamy stationary” had its desired effect.

[Alouette]

FReepMail to be added or removed from this pro-Israel/Judaic/Russian Jewry ping list.

Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.

[Badeye]

‘Is it possible to ‘read’ her show the next day, a la Rush?’

Not sure, I’m not a member of her subscription service. I think they do put up audio clips of various interviews and the like, but can’t swear to it.

[rocksblues]

these basically dumb people will be seduced by the surface fawning and attention and not see the evil beneath it all

Also explains their fascination with the Clintons.

[oneamericanvoice]

Well, let me help you since my words don’t fail me. This guy is pure evil. Period. He, not Bin Laden, is the most dangerous person on the planet. Ahmadinejad has read the Ayatollah Komehini’s play book and seems to place it up their with his Quran as a holy book. His mannerisms are hypnotic to the uneducated, and those who can not critically think. Could it be that this guy is the anti-Christ?

[oneamericanvoice]

And will the numb nut Republicans take these words and this opportunity to slam the Democrats? Hell no, they are total fools and cannot be trusted with this country. If not the Republicans, who?

[oneamericanvoice]

The Republican leadership can do many things, but making the media show up at the press conference isn’t one of them. How many times have you heard of the work of great Republicans like Jim DeMeent? Yet he is one of the hardest working.

[tioga]

Their bodacious egos are appeased with their attendance at the PC feast.

[joebuck]

"He notes that Americans don't understand Iranian history, saying that the movie 300 — with which he seems intimately familiar — was a "complete distortion of Iranian history." Iran, he says, has never invaded anyone in its history."

So I guess Herodotus, Plutarch and Aeschylus just made it all up for grins and giggles.

[DGHoodini]

When he said that, someone should have asked:
“What about Hassan-i Sabbah and his “Foundation”?

[Nachum]

My dinner with “Andre’” Ahmanutjob.

[onedoug]

And while Iran kills and maims our troops, Bush eats well too.