Ahmadinejad has some crazy, cruel ideas, but he seems like an intelligent man who is willing to stick up to the U.S. and point out that the emperor has no clothes. If we were the ideal America that I’d love to live in, we’d take his criticisms to heart (the valid ones anyway).

I don’t even think the president needs to be diplomatically skilled. He just has to be smart enough to find someone who’s good at diplomacy, and then be smart enough to get out of his way.

Personally I’m surprised — given the administration’s current drumbeat towards war with Iran — that they let Ahmadinejad into the country at all. It sure as hell undermines their plans to portray him as a crazed madman who absolutely can’t be reasoned with under any circumstances.

Regardless of the controversy over the introduction, the visit at least demonstrates that the president himself should be in serious diplomatic discussions with Iran instead of telling Fox News to start selling an attack. If he had any diplomatic skills at all, he might be doing that. The fact that international diplomacy is apparently being left to university students to handle demonstrates the dramatic absence of real leadership in the U.S. today.