The first thing that grabs the eye when watching “Mad Men,” AMC’s stylish drama set in a New York advertising agency in 1960, is how sharply dressed everyone is. That, and the fact that everyone smokes.

The show also has quite a bit to say about human desire. The firm’s ace Donald Draper (played with uncanny understatement by John Hamm) can recognize, create and exploit desire in the service of any product.

In the first episode, a colleague questions Draper about an inane tag line he invented for Lucky Strike cigarettes. It’s shameless, but all Draper cares about is that it will work.

“We can say anything we want,” Draper says.

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I don’t think Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Madison Avenue while visiting New York this week, but if his fanatical dictator gig doesn’t pan out, he could probably get a job there.

What Ahmadinejad accomplished with the trip is probably close to what he set out to do. Even Columbia University President Lee Bollinger’s strongly worded rebuke served the dictator’s purpose.

Many criticized Bollinger for inviting Ahmadinejad, rightly pointing out that our dedication to freedom of speech does not require that anyone be given an audience.

And normally, it is best to ignore bullies, cranks and hate mongers. But Ahmadinejad is the public face of a fanatical gang that oppresses its citizens, exports terrorism and is soon to go nuclear.

We’re way past the point where he can be safely ignored. That’s why Bollinger’s detailed rebuke was so satisfying to hear.

Bollinger asked Ahmadinejad

why he is waging a proxy war against US troops in Iraq, and said Americans could “rightly see your government as the enemy.” He condemned the Islamic Republic’s oppression of women, religious minorities, homosexuals and dissidents.

And he scolded Ahmadinejad for his apparent desire to obliterate the six million or so Jews now living in Israel while denying that six million of their ancestors were murdered in the Holocaust.

“When you come to a place like this, this makes you quite simply ridiculous,” Bollinger said.

Any friend of a civilization that values individual freedom should take Bollinger’s example to heart and be ready to defend that freedom, even if it’s simply by asserting the truth to someone who deals in lies.

The more powerful the liar, the less pleased he is to confront the truth. In a “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday, Ahmadinejad got fed up with Scott Pelley’s questions, so he likened Pelley to a CIA interrogator at Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib.

And though he uses buzzwords favored by a a certain segment of the American left, Ahmadinejad’s target audience is elsewhere.

By standing up to the United States, especially on the nuclear issue, Ahmadinejad hopes to appear stronger to the Iranian people, discouraging whatever democratic movement that exists there.

And by solidifying power at home, Ahmadinejad is better poised to exert its influence in the Middle East —especially in Iraq, whose Shiite majority could consent to become a vassal state to Shiite Iran.

Since some sort of major confrontation between the United States and Iran is probably inevitable, some sort of dialogue wouldn’t hurt. But it should only take place as long as everyone is clear Iran must not be trusted to become a nuclear state under any circumstances.

As French President Nicolas Sarkozy said at the United Nations this week, “allowing Iran to have nuclear weapons would mean an unacceptable risk for regional and world stability.”

Ahmadinejad will always say whatever he wants to say to get whatever he wants. The West must be willing to do whatever it takes to prevent that.

Aaron Keith Harris writes about politics, the media, pop culture and music and is a regular contributor to National Review Online and Bluegrass Unlimited. He can be reached at aaronkeithharris@gmail.com.