easy to be hard

　

“Have I really said something bad?” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asked tearfully today during an interview with Iran's ISNA news agency. “I meant nothing insulting, and yet that is the cruel charge that is being thoughtlessly cast at me by the American bully Obama. Although the situation is quite frightening, the Iranian people look to me to be a tower of strength, and… I shall try.” 　   Ahmadinejad appeared visibly shaken by Obama’s comments on BBC Persian in which he labeled comments made by the Iranian president as ‘offensive’ and ‘hateful’. “I do not have the American president’s silver tongue nor do I share his masterful command of the English language,” explained Ahmadinejad. “That does not mean that I do not have feelings. How can people be so heartless? If you prick me, do I not bleed? Please refrain from attempting to find out.” Obama was reacting to Ahmadinejad’s oft repeated claim that the 9/11 attacks were staged by American officials, and his expressed his desire for a UN tribunal. He said that ‘making offensive statements like this does not serve the interests of the Iranian people’. Ahmadinejad insisted that as a concerned world citizen, he had simply been ‘defending the rights’ of American citizens, an assertion Obama dismissed as ‘inexcusable’. “Inexcusable?” replied the stunned Iranian. “I would ask him for an apology, but I guess that would be futile. I know he would like to see me grovel, but I just cannot bring myself to do so. How can people be so cruel? It is easy to be hard, I suppose. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother trying.”