Ahmadinejad's World

This guy is a full blown kook:

"For hundreds of years, we've lived in friendship and brotherhood with the people of Iraq," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the National Press Club yesterday.

That's true -- as long as you don't count the little unpleasantness of the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, when a million people died, some by poison gas. And you'd also have to overlook 500 years of fighting during the Ottoman Empire.

I watched his interview on 60 minutes, and between the cheesy perma smirk on his face, to his inability to answer a yes or now question, was a ideological focus so narrow. And today he shares the UN stage with our President.

Maybe there is something to be said about polar opposites sharing the world stage. But this guy is in a dream world:

The man who recently hosted a convention for Holocaust deniers also treated listeners to his thoughts on the truth. "Lies have nothing to do with the divine spirit of mankind," he asserted.

Then the lies began.

Zremski inquired about the Amnesty International report finding flogging and imprisonment of journalists and at least 11 Iranian newspapers closed. "I think people who prepared the report are unaware of the situation in Iran," the president answered. "I think the people who give this information should seek what is the truth and, sort of, disseminate what's correct."

Zremski then raised the specific cases of two Kurdish journalists who have been sentenced to death for enmity toward God.

"This news is fundamentally wrong," Ahmadinejad replied. "What journalist has been sentenced to death?"

Zremski supplied the names of Kurdish journalists Adnan Hassanpour and Hiva Boutimar, sentenced July 16. "I don't know people by that name," the president retorted. "You have to, sort of, rectify the information channel."

Today he will spin some new tales of fiction at the UN. I'll read about it in the paper!

Flash