Crazy!

Reading this post by tristero on the importance of listening to what Iranian President Ahmanidejad has to say despite his espousing batshit ideas about the Holocaust reminds me of how the police would negotiate with a hostage taker.

Now, the man with the hostage has a gun and is ranting about "THEM" and how "THEY" are taking over his mind. Obviously, the man with the gun is a crazy man with a gun.

But the police, keeping in mind the danger to the hostage, would never refuse to talk to the man just because he is crazy. That would be ... crazy. Furthermore, they would never open the talks by accusing the man with the gun of being crazy (even though he is).

A crazy man with a gun is still a man with a gun.

A crazy President of a country with the potential of developing nuclear weapons and thus fundamentally shifting the balance of power in the most unstable region of the planet is still a President of a country with the potential of developing nuclear weapons and thus fundamentally shifting the balance of power in the most unstable region of the planet.

You don't just dismiss him out of some understandable desire not to validate his crazy ideas.

That would be ... crazy.