The Anchoress

UPDATE:::

Meanwhile, today Hugo Chavez displays symptoms of distemper, calling President Bush “the devil” and claiming he can still smell the sulpher. Michelle Malkin has more but THINKING folks on the left cannot be liking this right now. It’s not going to be much help for them, and it could seriously bite their asses in November. Even my left-of-center Li’l Bro Thom is saying, “he’s nuts!”

Why, yes, Thom. And Ahmadinejad, too.

CNN seems gleeful about it. That’s stupid. This is not going to play well and the dems will not be able to respond well to it. Smarter newsies will try to bury it and change the subject. Stupid ones will air it and think it’s a joke. Smart conservative bloggers will stuff as much of this into their harddrives as they can and haul it out ’round mid-October.

Musing Minds has the money quotes and the political pit bull is charging.
END UPDATE:::

Yeah, I know I’m a cock-eyed optimist, at times, but in the weird mathematics of the universe (seen through a glass, darkly - particularly if you are, like me - utterly math challenged and mostly running on hunches) I think very often a thing that seems profoundly negative ends up being quite a positive.

So, I looked at the conspiratorial bombast of Ahmadinejad’s speech to the UN yesterday and felt a little bit like Varifrank, as he writes here:

I’m staggered by the speech at the UN today by the Iranians. I will never forget this day.
4000 years later, and Western Civilization is still vexed by an explict expressed threat from the Persians.
When are we going to end this nightmare? I’ll be back later. I need to think a little bit more.

Frank is a smart fellow and terrific writer - I can’t wait to read what he comes up with. My own feelings were more “oh, look, following a speech by President Bush - the whipping boy called “Hitler,” the world over - a real Hitleresque loony of the first-water is being given credibility, first by Mike Wallace, now by the UN!”

What I noticed was the body language of the UN assembly. They looked at Bush; they listened. Ahmadinejad had them squirming and darting their eyes.

Like Varifrank, I had a sense that Ahmadinejad’s rambling discourse was a turning point, that Ahmadinejad’s rant following President Bush’s passionate call-out for liberty, made to one ME country after another, and to the UN, the whole world got a chance to see its choices very clearly. As Ed Morrissey writes in his excellent, must-read analysis:

The two leaders had the opportunity to reveal the natures of their governments yesterday at Turtle Bay. Bush spoke about democracy and the transformative power of freedom. Ahmadinejad spoke of conspiracies and ancient hatreds. If the world wants to see why they must keep Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, the US could not have asked for a better demonstration.

Indeed. And I think (and perhaps this is simply me being too optimistic, but here goes) some on the left understood what they had just seen, and made the right choice.

I have slim evidence for thinking this way - just a small blurb from The Nation, put out yesterday (excerpted):

Time to Move Beyond Bush-Hating

Part of the problem is that the left’s obsession with Bush — quite understandable but always shallow — no longer even provides decent slogans, much less vision. Indeed, looking out at the sea of anti-Bush signs at the rally, the man standing next to me — who had a relative who’d just come back from Iraq “fucked up” — remarked, “The problem is not just Bush. He’s doing what the corporations tell him. He represents the people with billions of dollars. Not just millions, billions. And they want to keep it.” Note to protesters and Democrats alike: W’s approval ratings are back up. Running against him isn’t good enough anymore.

Occam’s Razor says I should just take this opinion piece at its word, that this editorial is a voice on the left finally figuring out that “Hating Bush” is not a substantial position for acquiring lasting political power. But I think it’s more than that. I think it’s someone who took a hard look at the out-of-control Bush hate, did a compare-and-contrast of Bush and Ahmadinejad’s speeches and realized…”ummmm…maybe it’s time to stop screwing around; we can never like Bush, and we certainly can never come out and overtly support Bush, but maybe it is not in our best interests to continue to try to utterly destroy him and neuter his influence when someone like Ahmadinejad needs dealing with.”

I could be, of course, all wet. But if you begin to notice a bit less stridency in the Bush hate, a bit less derangement, if you start to notice a bit of silence where Bush is concerned (because they will opt for silence over “support,” but silence will be a blessed improvement) perhaps Ahmadinejad’s wake-up call of a speech will be why.

More on Ahmadinejad’s speech, and Bush:
Confederate Yankee feels the press is burying what Ahmadinejad said
Jon Podhoretz: WHERE W SEEKS POWER FOR THE PEOPLE, AHMADINEJAD CLAIMS IT FOR HIMSELF
Betsy’s Page; This story should have shared front page and The Kinder, Gentler Ahmadinejad
Siggy; The United Nations, Ahmadinejad And The Twilight Zone