Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

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Expecting an honest conversation with a politician is like expecting an honest conversation with an irritated cobra ... the cobra is so imbued with self-interest (sometimes called national interest) that it will bite you and never look back.

Nevertheless, since the wider landscape is filled with prevarication, it is nice to hear the countervailing lies in any discussion ... and thus, by chance, winkle out some version of the truth.

Yesterday, in the wake of American President Barack Obama's address to the United Nations, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave an interview in which he asserted that the era of U.S. "bullying" was drawing to a close in the Middle East and perhaps a time of equality among nations was at hand.

Ahmadinejad, Obama ... each with an agenda, each vying for the role as soothsayer and truth-teller and avuncular visionary, each no doubt lying through his teeth and yet simultaneously telling some truth.

I appreciate living in a country that can occasionally, if increasingly rarely, tell the other side of a story. One-sided virtue and righteousness make my teeth itch.
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