Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants to be his country's first astronaut, the AP reports:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday that he's ready to take the risk of being the first Iranian astronaut sent into space as part of Iran's goal of a manned space flight.

"I'm ready to be the first Iranian to sacrifice myself for our country's scientists," the official IRNA news agency quoted him as saying in an address to space scientists in Tehran.

Space tourist Anousheh Ansari was the first Iranian to make a journey into space aboard a Soyuz TMA-9 capsule from Baikonur, Kazakhastan, in September 2006. The 40-year-old telecommunications entrepreneur paid a reported $20 million for a space station visit. Her journey became an inspiration to women in male-dominated Iran.

Iran sent a monkey into space last week.

Which prompted John McCain to put in his racist $.02.

So Ahmadinejad wants to be first Iranian in space – wasn't he just there last week? "Iran launches monkey into space" news.yahoo.com/iran-launches-… — John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) February 4, 2013

Inspiring reaction from many, including lawmakers:

Seeing that, Michigan congressman Rep. Justin Amash, 32, shot back. “Maybe you should wisen up & not make racist jokes,” Amash tweeted.

Not everyone on the right agreed with Amash. Conservative John Podhoretz, for example, Tweeted this: "How dare McCain say something demeaning & disparaging abt the foremost anti-Semite on the planet." And this: "So…it's defend-the-Jew-hater-from-the-war-hero day."