Let Ahmadinejad Look

When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, who will be at the United Nations next week, asked for permission to visit Ground Zero, he was denied permission by the New York City Police Department. They cited security concerns, but the White House was less discreet in their response.

"I can understand," President Bush said in a press conference,"why they would not want somebody who is running a country who is a state sponsor of terror down there at the site."

In addition, Ahmadinejad is set to speak at Columbia University, at what Newsday calls "a question and answer session with university faculty and students as part of the school's World Leaders Forum. " This appearance is being protested by the city tabloids (John Podhoretz wrote a particularly inane column about it in the Post) and local politicians such as Christine Quinn, the head of the New York City Council, who claims that for Columbia to provide a forum for Ahmadinejad to spread his "hate-mongering vitriol" is offensive to all New Yorkers.

Well, I'm a New Yorker, and Christine Quinn (with whom I'm usually in agreement) does not speak for me in this regard. Is Ahmadinejad a Holocaust denier? Yes. Is that a sub-moronic thing to be? As they say in Minnesota, you betcha. Does Iran sponsor terrorist groups? Yes -- they sponsor both Hamas and Hezzbollah (neither of whom, it should be said, target the United States). Are either of those valid reasons to keep him from Ground Zero or from speaking at Columbia? I don't think so.

I would let Ahmadinejad go pretty much anywhere in New York he wanted to -- and talk to anyone who would speak to him. If he wants to go down to Ground Zero, let him. If he wants to speak at Columbia, let him. But most of all, I want New Yorkers to speak to him -- I want him to meet as many New Yorkers as possible and hear what they have to say, and take that back to Iran.

Will his mind be changed by what he might hear from the people of this city? Probably not. But I for one would love to have the opportunity to tell him that, in spite of the fact that I think this country should have a far more civilized discourse with his, anyone who thinks the Holocaust didn't happen is a total fucking idiot.

Tom Moran