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.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Words fail me.

[MNJohnnie]

The Muslims do this very well. They suck up really hard to the Drive Bys knowing that these basically dumb people will be seduced by the surface fawning and attention and not see the evil beneath it all. The reason I’m-a-nut-job has the smile on his face at the end of this is because he is laughing at these stuff shirt media fools for being such sheep

[linn37]

I think he’s crazy. I also think the writer of this article was taken in by the lil runt.

[roses of sharon]

Wow, sounds like Clinton’s “War Room”, has found another “brilliant bad boy” to adore.

[Kay Syrah]

I don’t usually read past any sentance with the words “creamy stationary” ( is there any other kind when one dines with the better sort? sheesh)

However, I did read this, because I wanted to see how easily journalists can be duped. And yes, words fail me.

[waimea.man]

From the article: 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.

Incredible....

[lormand]

"Words fail me."

I must self censor myself on the waxing and burning contempt I have for "news" outlets, and "journalists".

[armymarinemom]

Words fail me too. I guess we all get to see what happens when a country is run by a professor.

[ravingnutter]

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.

A filtered lie is still a lie.

[TexasCajun]

Notice how Ahmadinejad persistantly stated at Columbis:

"I am a intellectual like you!"

"I am a professor like you!"

"I am smart like you!"

"I hate George Bush like you!"

"We are on the same side!"

[Calpernia]

I would know who the 23 people were that attended that dinner. What the criteria was for the invites and what they said when they had their speaking moments.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Didn’t CNN’s Christiane Amanpour just do a special report equating Christians with radical Islam?

[Lijahsbubbe]

He should have been served this with an IED underneath

[A message]

and fiercely articulate

What the?

Does that mean he enunciated " wipe out Israel, death to America" and "all you infidels must convert or die" clearly.

[bray]

Wonder if Carvile or Bugeyes is his PR specialist?? You know he is being advised by a Dim on how to fool the press.

Pray for W and Our Troops

[2ndDivisionVet]

Sssshhhhh! Newt Gingrich and Al Gore are both professors.

[Campion]

Iran, he says, has never invaded anyone in its history.

Tell the Spartans and the Athenians it was all just a big misunderstanding.

[tobyhill]

They journalist were eating while the women were hanging around, literally.

http://www.charonboat.com/2007/07/iran_hanging_woman.wmv

(graphic)

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

I would do a “Sheryl Crowe” with the “creamy stationary” and send it back.

[mimaw]

Duped? These participants are in league with this POS.