"I wish the Iranian people well, and only hope their experience with an inept, rigid ideologue president goes better than ours."

Says Oliver Stone, after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declined to become the subject of a Stone documentary. Stone got the bad news: he "is considered part of the opposition in the U.S., but opposition in the U.S. is a part of the Great Satan.” Aw, poor Stone! How much do you have to hate the United States to get Ahmadinejad to like you? Much more than Stone thought, apparently.

ADDED: "[O]pposition in the U.S. is a part of the Great Satan.” A nice free speech point for Independence Day, no?

IN THE COMMENTS: Some good left-vs.-right back and forth. As expected, I'm questioned on the implication that Stone "hates" America. Best response, from Cedarford: "Ahmahinejad just gave a healthy reminder... that no matter how much the Left fights for terrorist's precious civil rights and seek[s] to undermine and demoralize the US military, at the end of the day, Lefties are part of the enemy."

MORE IN THE COMMENTS: Cyrus asks: "Are you suggesting that Oliver Stone hates the United States?"

I answer:

I think he hates what it is to some degree, but that in his own view, he probably feels he loves it more than people who merely love it as it is. My suggestion is mainly that it is not possible for him to hate it enough to win favor with Ahmadinejad. And it's pretty cool that Ahmadinejad's spokesman put it in a way that made clear what many or most Americans think: that the critics of America are an integral part of what America is.