All but publicly lynched, deservedly, for inviting Mahmoud Ahmedinejad to speak at Columbia University, president Lee Bollinger found a pair when it came time to introduce a man accurately described by The Anti-Idiotarian as "a psychotic, clinically insane murderer who is the head of the top state sponsor of terrorism, a sick, anti-Semitic megalomaniac."
This is a man, said Bollinger in his introduction, who exhibits "all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator."
After several minutes excoriating the man sitting just feet from him, he concluded “Today I feel all the weight of the modern civilized world yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for,” Mr. Bollinger told Mr. Ahmadinejad. “I only wish I could do better.”
'Kate' at Columbia was live-blogging the affair. Scroll down past Ahmadinejad's self-praise and avoidance of direct questions to see what Bollinger had to say to him. The Associated Press summary of the affair is here.
UPDATE 1: Taking advantage of the free speech at Columbia he prohibits at home, Ahmedinejad slithered around and through questions about state murder, state-sponsored terrorism, and his out-and-out lying on everything from the existence of homosexuals in Iran (who he is doing his best to eliminate) to the existence of the Holocaust. Liberty Scott sums up the slithering well.
UPDATE 2: Oops, looks like Kate was posting the New York Times' live blog of the event. No matter.
UPDATE 3: CNN have edited video of Bollinger's opening speech: 'Not a Warm Welcome.' It follows the car ad.
UPDATE 4: You Tube have a more complete video account. Here's Part 1 and Part 2 of Bollinger's verbal flogging of the dictator. [Hat tip Daniel W.]
5 comments:
All but publicly lynched, deservedly, for inviting Mahmoud Ahmedinejad to speak at Columbia University...
Deservedly?? Are you kidding me?
I wasn't live blogging the affair, rather I took it from a NYT article; I just felt the need to re-post and get it to the blogosphere. Thanks for the kudos, though they're not deserved!
I do enjoy your blog and will continue to read it.
Greetings from DC!
Deny Holocaust Denial!
This was pretty sh*t.
I'm sure his speech was full of asinine, eco-freindly, culturally aware, can't we all just get along clap-traps.
He should have done his Holocaust denial speech.
Face it, Columbia didn't do this for 'free-speech'. They did it for publicity and one-up-man-ship points in a perverse gangster-chic stunt.
Where was the 'Don't Taze me Bro!' guy when we really needed him??
The President of Columbia University should have known better than to invite this rag-head thug to campus. As for his "hard questions", that's just damage control cutting in. As soon as this academic turd-head realised he was going to get excoriated in the media he tried to make it look as if he was strong on principe. What an idiot. The hypocracy marks him.
LGM
That is a great speech from the dean. The following could be equally directed at the Labour government and their abhorrent EFB:
"It is consistent with the idea that one should know thine enemies, to have the intellectual and emotional courage to confront the mind of evil and to prepare ourselves to act with the right temperament. In the moment, the arguments for free speech will never seem to match the power of the arguments against, but what we must remember is that this is precisely because free speech asks us to exercise extraordinary self- restraint against the very natural but often counter-productive impulses that lead us to retreat from engagement with ideas we dislike and fear. In this lies the genius of the American idea of free speech."
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