The Left fell in love with a reporter who threw shoes at a man who couldn’t (and wouldn’t) take retribution against his protest. What about supporting a protester who actually put his neck on the line to “tell truth to power”? Two weeks ago, an Iranian student ripped Ali Larijani to his face at a speech and denounced Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

No shoes were harmed in the filming of this incident, but the speaker may have been lucky to get out alive. As soon as he denounced Larijani as illegitimate, a cheer went up in the auditorium, but it quickly got drowned out as soon as the student directed his ire to Ahmadinejad. While the protester described the Iranian president as “nauseating”, some in the auditorium jumped to their feet and started chanting support slogans for Ahmadinejad — including “Death to hypocrites!”

Note the reaction of the rest of the students in this video, taken at Shiraz University on December 5th. They don’t seem happy to find themselves in the middle of this near-riot, although Larijani himself seems unmoved by either the criticism or the response. The student gets shouted off the stage, and no one seems interested in defending him.

Which took more guts — tossing shoes at President Bush in Iraq, or standing up to the mullahcracy in Iran?