What Zone is Time in?

Time:

The shrill reaction to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's request to visit Ground Zero is playing right into the Iranian President's hands. He faces growing unpopularity at home, thanks to a dire economy and mounting religious and cultural repression. But his power base is made up mainly of Iranians who participated in the 1979 revolution, among whom the loathing of the U.S. runs very deep. Nothing energizes them more than the sight of their leader being excoriated by the hated Americans.

...

New York's tabloids hyperventilated. The Daily News shrieked: "If you even think of setting foot near Ground Zero, you can GO TO HELL!" The paper went on to describe Ahmadinejad as a "madman," and "an enemy of the U.S. in particular and of civilization in general."

American politicians — especially presidential hopefuls looking to score easy points — lit into the Iranian President with a candor they rarely show on the campaign trail. "It is unacceptable for [Ahmadinejad], who refuses to renounce and end his own country's support of terrorism, to visit the site of the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil in our nation's history," said Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani — who was New York City mayor at the time of the attacks — thundered: "This is a man who has made threats against America and Israel, is harboring bin Laden's son and other al-Qaeda leaders, is shipping arms to Iraqi insurgents and is pursuing the development of nuclear weapons." His fellow Republican candidate Mitt Romney described Ahmadinejad's request as "shockingly audacious."

The Iranian President can only benefit from this sort of demonization. It allows him to tell his fellow Iranians: "Look, I tried to be a nice guy, I wanted to lay a wreath on Ground Zero, but these Americans don't appreciate our compassion." And to the conservative mullahs and hard-liners of Iran, Ahmadinejad's stock rises when Americans put him down.

The Daily News was just being the Daily News and that should be no surprise to Time but apparently was. Actually Giuliani and Romney both made much more sense than the Time writer. When you come down to it, Ahmadinejad probably saw the effort as a win either way, so the Time analysis misses the point. If he was going to get media play out of it either way, it is better to get your licks in and make clear that he will not be able to exploit the terror site in person. Liberals are always willing to have the US suffer humiliation at the expense of despots in order not to offend them. It si what makes many Americans really dislike liberals.