Ahmadinejad shows his lunacy on CBS

Mahmoud AhmadinejadMahmoud Ahmadinejad, the erratic president of Iran, has made a name for himself in the world by denying the Holocaust.

In an interview last week with Katie CouricKatie Couric of CBS television, Ahmadinejad seemed to refine his position somewhat when he didn't deny that six million Jews were killed during World War II, but questioned why such a fuss was made about six million people from one ethnic group when 50 million Europeans died.

Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler didn't only go after the Jews. He targeted homosexuals, Gypsies and the mentally retarded as well.

But there is a difference, and it's the reason the Holocaust matters to students of history.

Hitler didn't blame Gypsies or homosexuals for Germany's woes after World War I, and he didn't say either of them were leeches bleeding the German people dry.

He did set out to exterminate European Jewry, and while he didn't invent the idea of persecuting or killing Jews, he took it to a whole new level. And sadly, he wasn't the last world leader to go after the Jews.

Far too many leaders of Arab nations -- both secular and spiritual -- have parroted the idea since 1948 that the Jews must be driven into the sea and Israel erased from the map of the world.

Ahmadinejad rightly understands that much of the political and military support Israel has from Western nations is because of what happened during World War II, and he knows if he can denigrate or minimize the idea of the Holocaust, it's a big step for his own political aims.

I was glad to see Couric press him on his Holocaust denials. The more the world hears this man, the more people will realize he is not a reasonable man and cannot be trusted as a national leader.

Yes, there have been other holocausts since 1945, and the world has behaved shamefully in places such as Rwanda and Darfur.

But that's no reason to listen to a lunatic who says that just because a lot of people get killed, what happens to one group is no big deal.