More Mahmoud

Not sure what I think of this piece from Peggy Noonan. She remains one of my favorite writers, but I'm always a bit wary when she gets into scoldly/nostalgic mode. Especially when she sounds just like Barack Obama in the process.

She's on to something, however, in scolding Columbia President Lee Bolinger for "introducing" Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with an angry condemnation. Not that it wasn't deserved, but it gave A-jad his one legitimate point of the entire circus: "In my country, when you invite someone as a guest, you treat him with respect." A lot of people thought Bollinger redeemed himself by sticking it to A-jad. "He really stood up to the dictator" and all that. I thought the whole thing was unseemly -- if not plain dishonorable.

And William F. Buckley agrees with me. At least he did in 1962, as the folks at NRO's The Corner dug up a few days ago. This is worth reading. Money quote: "Fight the tyrants everywhere; but do not ask them to your quarters, merely to spit upon them: and do not ask them to your quarters if you cannot spit upon them."

More broadly: What's with the notion these days that sticking your tongue out at a bad guy constitutes some great act of courage? I got the same kind of feeling a few months ago, when A-jad released those captured British sailors, who went on to sign book deals as soon as they got home. The woman among them bragged about her real snappy comeback when A-jad asked her about her family during his "amnesty" ceremony. Not to minimize their travails, but that aspect was particularly lame.

A theory: Is it a matter of confusing the nature of evil? The belief that genocidal dictators can be embarrassed as if they were run-of-the-mill unscrupulous politicians? Say Bush = Hitler enough, and you'll get some seriously mistaken ideas about who Hitler was.