NY Times Discovers Ahmadinejad's Blog

Geez, I know they're slow on the draw over there, but this was news 16 months ago.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, is not the first name that comes to mind when thinking of net surfers and instant messages. Yet, it turns out, the man is a blogger.

Equally surprising for a leader known for a kind of thundering public presence, his blog is not especially tough. He condemns Washington’s policies but writes infrequently and more ponderously than in his famously confrontational speeches. Yet the reader comments posted alongside his own seem far less censored and harsher than one might expect.

“I think you are an evil leader,” one comment posted by an American reader said. “Freedom and tolerance are necessities in this day and age, and the fact that your country kills intellectuals, journalists, minorities is horrible and deeply disturbing,” it added.

Another reader called his statement at Columbia University in September when he said there were no gays in Iran as absurd and said his domestic policies were “brutish.” Still another wrote, “Shut up please, would you? I get headaches reading your nonsense stuff.”

These comments run along with supportive ones, including postings that seem to refer to the new American intelligence estimate that Iran is not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon, something Mr. Ahmadinejad had repeatedly asserted.

“I knew you were telling the truth,” writes a Canadian.

Sounds like he's a hit with the nutroots.