What Does Ahmadinejad Think About the Holocaust?

Laurie Goodstein glides over the Iranian president's "record" and "stance on the Holocaust" without repeating his past denials that the Holocaust ever occurred.

Religion reporter Laurie Goodstein followed Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a chapel across from the United Nations for Thursday's "Ahmadinejad Meets Clerics, And Decibels Drop a Notch." In the fourth paragraph we learn the secret meeting between Ahmadinejad and the clerics was "organized by the Mennonites and the Quakers, churches known for their commitment to pacifism" (that's code for "leftist").

Goodstein shunned a discussion of Ahmadinejad's view on Israel and Jews, merely noting that there were no Jewish leaders present because "those invited declined because they could not win support from Jewish organizations."

Gee, wonder why? One wouldn't learn from Goodstein, who avoided talking about the Iranian president's take on the Holocaust.

"Mr. Ahmadinejad's smile at times turned to a grimace as the panelists prodded him, politely, about his record on the Holocaust, human rights abuses, Israel and nuclear weapons development. Also politely, he conceded nothing, and often deflected the inquiries by turning the spotlight on the policies of the United States and Israel....Though Mr. Ahmadinejad's answers differed little, the tone of the session was a marked contrast to the verbal pummeling he received at Columbia University on Monday, when the university's president, Lee C. Bollinger, called the Iranian president either 'brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated' for his stance on the Holocaust.

So what precisely is Ahmadinejad's "stance"? Well, he's made some recent vague backtracking, but previously he's not only denied the Holocaust took place, but has called for another one, or at least for Israel to be wiped off the map. Goodstein ignored the topic.