More Ahmedinejad

Commenter jbl at Matt's place gets my point, which maybe I should have made more clearly.

To a certain extent, I don't see Beutler's point, I guess. Iran should take McCain seriously (except that there's really very little chance he'll be elected). The U.S. should take Ahmadinejad seriously. And Iraqis should take everyone seriously. Nobody should get a free pass for being uselessly inflammatory, and I think that is what's happening.

I suppose that by invoking Fox News, I made it seem as if it would be somehow wrong for us to take umbrage when Ahmedinejad says inflammatory things. I am a firm believer that words matter, and understand perfectly well why it is that people in our country don't like it when Ahmedinejad rails against us (or even to a certain extent Israel). But I also think it's important to take into account Iran's (or any country's) ability to actually do the things their rhetoric implies they want to do. That would include our Republican leaders' implicit desire to, um "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran".