The one positive that came out of the Mahdi Hatter's appearance at Columbia was the way President Lee Bollinger handled the Q&A session.

But the NY Sun is reporting that the faculty and students are not happy with the harsh tone and grilling that Bollinger gave to the Iranian President .

Backlash Against Bollinger Hits Columbia - September 26, 2007 - The New York Sun (http://www.nysun.com/article/63380)

Obviously in the Ivy League towers free speech is extended to only some guests but not to the host. It evidently would've been much better if he would've apologized for Americans who openly criticize the Mahdi Hatter. We should sit there star struck while he expounds on his personal theories of the holocaust. And here I thought it was supposed to be a serious debate about our differences. If I knew it was a Mahmoudapalooza I might have attended myself !

Many Ivy League schools remind me of US Celebrity attitudes:

"I'm right, you're wrong. Do as I say, not as I do. I am not ashamed to be a hypocrite."

I'm not surprised by this.

If you spend decades indoctrinating students to be PC, and you spend the same amount of time showing the world that PC is worth being militant over, and you support and promote the idea that free speech is only for those who agree with you (as Columbia has spent decades doing), then why should you be surprised when, the first time you are not PC, the student body jumps all over you for not being PC?

This is the attitude that Bollinger created within his own school. He is now hoist by his own petard.

But all of this goes back to what I was saying in the other string: Bollinger doesn't really believe the statements he was making and the questions he was asking of Ahmadinejad any more than his students do. After all, he's the guy who taught those students to believe what they believe. He was only doing it to keep his school from being de-funded by the state and federal government.

Elliot

Tom

As with most Universities, Columbia has its Republican, Democratic, Fascist and Socialist groups; there is no way anyone can avoid offending one or the other. I stand behind President Lee Bollinger, his action was a fine representation of both the Constitution and truth.

I think Michelle Malking makes a valid point


On my train ride home from Mahmoudapalooza, I spoke briefly with a Columbia University grad steeped in the Ivy League haze of non-judgment. She was upset and embarrassed — not by Columbia president Lee Bollinger’s boneheaded decision to legitimize Ahmadinejad at its World Leaders Forum. No, she was mortified that Bollinger had delivered his face-saving introduction challenging Ahmadinejad.

With childlike naïveté, this Columbia alum told me: “I’m frightened by the polarity.” Which about sums up the majority view of academia and the Ahmadinejad excusers on the left: They are more afraid of standing up and calling out evil than losing the West, their country, and their own lives to it. Townhall.com::Mahmoudapalooza: The Good, the Bad and the Craven::By Michelle Malkin (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichelleMalkin/2007/09/26/mahmoudapalooza_the_good,_the_bad_and_the_craven&comments=true#01aaa743-5bd8-4f09-82c3-fba54ccad621)

I think Michelle Malking makes a valid point

Townhall.com::Mahmoudapalooza: The Good, the Bad and the Craven::By Michelle Malkin (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichelleMalkin/2007/09/26/mahmoudapalooza_the_good,_the_bad_and_the_craven&comments=true#01aaa743-5bd8-4f09-82c3-fba54ccad621)
Another of those little, snippets with-out substance, so many political commentators are so fond of making; who knows what “I’m frightened by the polarity.” means. I don’t consider Michelle Malking as makes a valid point, the only point she makes with me is reflecting her bias written to right wing fanatics.

In reading over some of the comments made by those who saw El Lunatico, I am amazed at the sheer volume of sheeple who are totally willing to take this guy's word on things, and are utterly convinced that Bush is the evildoer/liar.

Have we REALLY sunk that far, that we can't even recognize pure evil when we see it?

Do you have any examples; I know their both liars but that is a given for any political leader since time began, I can't imagine anyone believing what I read the Iranian said.

Yes, it was shocking that the only group with enough guts to boo him was the homosexual groups, This man is everything a liberal is suppose to hate, but they gave him open arms.

And the Mahmoudpalooza A-jad victory tour rolls on!!

My Dinner with Ahmadinejad - TIME (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1665579,00.htm)


My Dinner with Ahmadinejad
By Richard Stengel

The invitation was on creamy stationery with fancy calligraphy: The Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran "requests the pleasure" of my company to dine with H.E. Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The dinner is at the Intercontinental Hotel — with names carefully written out at all the place settings around a rectangular table. There are about 50 of us, academics and journalists mostly. There's Brian Williams across the room, and Christiane Amanpour a few seats down. And at a little after 8pm, on a day when he has already addressed the U.N. the evening after his confrontation at Columbia, a bowing and smiling Mahmoud Admadinejad glides into the room.

This is now an annual ritual for the President of Iran. Every year, during the U.N. General Assembly in New York, he plots out a media campaign that — in its shrewdness, relentlessness, and quest for attention — would rival Angelina Jolie on a movie junket. And like any international figure, Mr. Ahmadinejad hones his performance for multiple audiences: in this case, the journalists and academics who can filter his speech and ideas for a wider American audience.

The format of the evening is curious. In his calm and fluent voice — "dear friends," he calls us — he requests that we not ask questions, but make statements, so that he can react to them in a form of dialogue. The academics are not shy. They make statements not only about the need for dialogue and reconciliation, but castigate the Iranian government for chilling press freedoms and for arresting Iranian-American scholars who were only trying to foster better relations between America and Iran. Throughout, Ahmadinejad is courtly, preternaturally calm, and fiercely articulate.

After an hour, he is ready to respond. He does so first with a half-hour ode to the relationship between man and God that might have been dictated by the Persian poet Rumi. "I believe that Almighty God created the universe for mankind. Man is God's most important creation and it is through him that we appreciate the beauties of the universe. God has sent man here on a mission." That mission, he says, is to pursue love, justice, kindness and dignity. In fact, he repeats those works so often that it begins to sound like a mantra: Love. Justice. Kindness. Dignity. He speaks with the quiet zeal of a not-very-flamboyant televangelist. "The pursuit of justice through love and kindness and human dignity can end all conflicts on earth," he says. "Inshallah."

When it comes time for him to address the comments, he does so by citing each speaker by name — 23 in all, he notes. In contrast with what he calls the lack of respect and dignity accorded to him at Columbia — where, he says, he found it odd that an academic institution which prizes tolerance would treat him without any — he addresses each person carefully and patiently. Some highlights:

- Iran has not violated any of the rules of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ahmadinejad says. He has proposed a multilateral uranium enrichment program with different nations, and can't understand why no one has taken up his offer.

- The US and Iran can play a positive role together in Iraq. "If the US withdraws from Iraq, good things will happen," he says. "I believe that the Iraqi people can rule themselves."

- In the Middle East, Ahmadinejad says the world must allow the Palestinians to decide their future for themselves: "That is the human solution to sixty years of instability." He refers to Israel only as "the Zionist regime" and does not mention the Holocaust.

- Ahmadinejad claims there are thirty newspapers published in Iran that are opposed to his government, citing that as evidence of press freedom in Iran.

- In answer to a question about how he viewed Hitler's legacy, he says, "I view Hitler's role as extremely negative, a despicably dark face."

- He notes that Americans don't understand Iranian history, saying that the movie 300 — with which he seems intimately familiar — was a "complete distortion of Iranian history." Iran, he says, has never invaded anyone in its history.

Finally, in response to a question about whether war with Iran was growing more likely, he says, "Mr. Bush is interested in harming Iran. But I believe there are wise politicians in America who will prevent such a war. We hate war. We would not welcome it. But we are prepared for every scenario. Yet I don't think war will happen."

With that, Ahmadinejad says he has an early morning appointment the next day, and that he welcomes greater dialogue like this evening. And then, still composed, and with the same slightly mysterious smile that never leaves his face all evening, he bows deeply and heads upstairs.

What is missing from this lovely exchange is the invitation to visit Iran so he can treat them to the hospitality that was shown to US academic Haleh Esfandiari .

And the Mahmoudpalooza A-jad victory tour rolls on !!!!!

My Dinner with Ahmadinejad - TIME (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1665579,00.htm)



What is missing from this lovely exchange is the invitation to visit Iran so he can treat them to the hospitality that was shown to US academic Haleh Esfandiari .
He invited all in attendance... like he really means it?:eek:

yes, it was shocking that the only group with enough guts to boo him was the homosexual groups, This man is everything a liberal is suppose to hate, but they gave him open arms.

Wasn’t that Jesus’s way?

Hey tomder,

******what about the war in iraq?? Don't you fascists want to think about that disaster? Trying to distract the simple folks?******


Remember, **we agree** on the wonderful first amendment to our constitution.

Iminmypajamas made an of himself.

From a Chicago Sun-Times columnist today --

"There is no lie," wrote Pliny the Elder, "so reckless that it lacks all support."

I would go further than the great Roman and suggest that there is no lie so reckless that it lacks a whole lot of support.

Which is what we should carry away from this week's visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

We miss the point by guffawing at his antic performance at Columbia University. It doesn't matter that he said there are no homosexuals in Iran. Nor is it fruitful to chase after the will-o'-the-wisp of his Holocaust denial and try to cage it with our cold reason. Nor should we pick apart his vague ramble and catalog its various lunacies.

What is important is that Ahmadinejad represents, not just Iran, but a chunk of the Islamic world that finds itself blinking in the white light of modernity and doesn't like it one bit. The attacks of Sept. 11, and whatever else is to come, is the fallout from that rude awakening.

Our error is in believing that we can marshal our facts and our logic and win. We can't -- we are not dealing with ourselves, but with people such as Ahmadinejad.

You can't persuade that sort -- list his crimes to his face and he dismisses them as "insults," as if he were a guest invited to tea.

It didn't even matter whether Columbia let him speak or not -- the people arguing that it gave him "legitimacy" also miss the point. The only thing that would delight his supporters more than giving Ahmadinejad a platform at Columbia would be denying him one and sending him home in glory to strut as the man whose ideas are too dangerous -- too true -- even for America's so-called freedom of speech.

Let's talk a moment about freedom of speech, shall we? Because a lot of people seem confused.

The reason Americans can spout any vile rubbish that crosses their minds is that we have a First Amendment to our Constitution. It states:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Note the all-important word "Congress." The First Amendment is directed toward the government. It doesn't compel CBS to give Don Imus a job no matter what he says. It doesn't force the Sun-Times to run my column (but don't tell my bosses, because I've convinced them they must run my stuff or they'll go to straight to prison).

Nor did it demand that Columbia extend an invitation to the Iranian nutbag. The suggestion that they had to, in honor of the free play of ideas, is nonsense. Were I to ask Columbia to allow me to deliver my address, "The Moon and Why it is Made of Cheese," I somehow doubt they would let me speak.

What the First Amendment does do is constrain New York state legislators -- who are threatening vague punishments against Columbia for allowing Ahmadinejad to speak. They should know better but, if they're anything like our legislators in Springfield, of course they don't.

Tom-

In a weird week of events, here the student body probably would've supported Bollinger being tazed while deeming the Meyer's incident a martyr's cause. I don't know the format that was specifically used at Columbia U, but when you're the President of a major University and the satan of deceit appears on your campus you tend to ask the tough questions. I know I would. In fact if I was the President of any University it would not had been an public speaking arrangement for Mamoud, but open season interrogation.



Bobby