The politician who has gained most from this week’s events is…

Here’s a hint: It won’t make any difference who wins tonight’s debate, if it happens.

The political figure who comes out of this week as the biggest winner is…Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Consider the following points:

• While normally US sanctions would prevent him from setting foot on US territory, because the UN is meeting in New York, this avowed enemy of America gets to live it up in New York City for a week with full diplomatic immunity.
• As he has in the past, Ahmadinejad gets to slander the US and Israel before the whole world from the UN podium at length  with absolutely no repercussions.
• Ahmadinejad’s government openly gave the international community the symbolic finger over the issue of its nuclear program, refusing to cooperate and making a mockery of the sham “negotiations” it has been pretending to conduct while moving full speed ahead in its drive to build a bomb.
• Ahmadinejad was a featured guest on Larry King, where Larry was deferential almost to the point of fellating the Middle Eastern dictator.
• Ahmadinejad spent a couple of hours having his feet kissed by members of the American “peace movement”, including the co-founder of the anti-war group Code Pink. (There is no Iranian “peace movement” because Iran jails and tortures dissidents.) Meanwhile, Sarah Palin was barred from a protest rally against Ahmadinejad when national and local Democrats refused to participate if she was allowed to attend, which would have attracted much more media attention to the rally.
• Back at home, the Iranian regime has just released a new book full of cartoons and essays denying and making fun of the Holocaust, to help indoctrinate a new generation of anti-Semites in the Muslim world.
• Ahmadinejad has enoyed the rare treat of being asked by Western reporters to comment on the US financial crisis, which he gleefully portrayed as the beginning of America’s ultimate downfall. Never mind that this is the man who has almost single-handedly ruined Iran’s own economy despite record oil prices.

I am still mulling over this financial bailout, but one argument in favor of doing something would be that the longer this crisis drags out, the more time our nation’s enemies such as Ahmadinejad have to frolic unchallenged on the world stage.