Iran’s President Ahmadenijad challenged US President Bush to a televised debate today, to discuss, live:

“Let each one of us declare in this debate his opinion on means and ways for settling international crises,” Ahmadinejad said at a press conference in Tehran Tuesday, quoted by the Iranian News Agency, IRNA.
“We have just and balanced proposals to make based on the principles of respecting human dignity and equality between peoples,” Ahmadinejad said.

This quote, reported by UPI, was actually the only release given by IRNA which makes me lament even more the status of the average Iranian, receiving their media through news so spun it’s forming its own gravitational field.
Mr. Ahmadenijad said he and Bush needed to discuss “world issues and the ways of solving the problems of the international community.” (His Iran is the current problem of the international community, but whatever…)
Ahmadenijad also said such a debate would show “the proposals of the Iranian nation on how to run the world better, different from the U.S. method of use of force.” (What proposals are these?)
I’m actually glad the White House snubbed the debate invitation. In a battle of wits, you do not send a one-armed pixie wielding a wet tissue. Ahmadinejad has a PhD in transportation engineering, is a professor of civil engineering, and placed in the top 0.1% of all Iranian students on his college entrance exams. Bush has an MBA which, along with his military service, is marred by his substance abuse at the time, and his oratory skills — especially amongst world leaders — let’s just say they leave something to be desired.
Bush is not who you send to “defend the point of view of the free world” against a polished propagandist. No matter the merit of the message or the veracity of the claim, Bush is far outmatched forensically and intellectually, and in front of a potential billion viewers, this is not a good thing.
Could you imagine? There are enough reasons one could be embarrassed to be American as it is!