Everybody wants to get in the act these days. Nobody wants to be ignored. And the Hell with Warhol. Fifteen minutes is way too short.
What other possible explanation is there for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s invitation to speak … excuse me, answer questions … at Columbia University than to make its relatively obscure president Lee Bollinger famous?
Columbia, of course, has its public explanation for the invitation: we need to know more about what the Iranian president really thinks. Come again? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s views are better known than almost anyone’s in the world. We hear them on a daily basis from numerous sources, including the man himself. At this moment “Ahmadinejad” generates 8,540,000 hits on Google in that spelling alone. The notion that one hour before an audience of Columbia University students will add anything to this but canned responses is ridiculous.
To call this a free speech issue is also absurd since Ahmadinejad’s speech (unlike many citizens of his country) has not been in the slightest restricted. Quite the reverse. He has an unlimited global megaphone.
So Lee Bollinger, in his narcissistic pomposity, is giving status to a psychotic racist and Holocaust denier. Good for Mr. Bollinger. To paraphrase what Freud said of the Gestapo, I wish him well.
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16 Comments
1. Peter Boston:Somewhere in this world there is a Louisville Slugger aching to make the acquaintance of Mr. Lee Bollinger and the Columbia turds who cheer him on.
Sep 22, 2007 - 12:35 pm 2. David:I swear Roger, it has to be the water.
Sep 22, 2007 - 12:38 pm 3. photoncourier.blogspot.com:Is there something about the job of a university “administrator” that causes exceptionally lame people to be drawn to that career?
Sep 22, 2007 - 1:19 pm 4. chuck:I don’t have a problem with this event. Ahmadinejad gets to speak to 400. Various Jewish groups get to organize demonstrations, the College Republican’s get to join with other, no doubt progressive, campus groups to put an ad in the Spectator, so on and so forth. I think it might serve shake some folks up and start them thinking. I just hope the brouhaha suffices to attract plenty of news coverage.
Sep 22, 2007 - 4:52 pm 5. Captain Hate:photoncourier,
The short answer is “yes”. I’ve posted previously that University presidents should all be replaced by high-priced hookers; the skill sets are identical and I’d much rather spend my time with a hot woman than the usual loads. On the specific case here, the next time Columbia comes calling for money, it might be one of the least rewarding experiences they’ve ever had; although I’ll take mercy on the poor student that has to do their dirty work.
Sep 22, 2007 - 4:53 pm 6. Barry Dauphin:The simple explanation is that Bollinger is an a$$. The complicated explanation requires reading Foucault while drunk. Simple wins.
Sep 22, 2007 - 10:52 pm 7. Tom Paine:Old Saying:
“Everyone always has two reasons for whatever they do.
“A good one — and the real one.”
Sep 23, 2007 - 5:28 am 8. srlucado:It’s like I keep saying; I’m looking forward to a time when *nobody* is famous for fifteen minutes.
Sep 23, 2007 - 6:45 am 9. Richard Nieporent:If President Bollinger had actually read his own press release he would understand why Columbia should not be leading its prestige to such an odious and hateful individual. No you don’t challenge someone by honoring him with an invitation to a major university. Why would you give such a vile individual a platform to spout his hateful ideology? This has nothing to do with free speech. Can anyone really be so naive to believe that?
Frankly the fact that he only called the statements made by Ahmadinejad controversial is adding insult to injury. No those statements are not just controversial; they are hateful and offensive. Rather than challenging Ahmadinejad President Bollinger should be denouncing his vile comments. But of course he will not do that. That would be an impolite thing to do to an invited guest. I would not be surprised if at the end of the forum, President Bollinger announces that there will be peace in our time. People are being kind when they call President Bollinger a fool.
Sep 23, 2007 - 7:06 am 10. JK Ribera:“Ahmadinejad gets to speak to 400.”
Chuck, you make no sense at all. Ahmadinejad is not just speaking to “400.” He gets to tell and show the world he spoke at Columbia University with media covering it everywhere. That is the point. What he says is meaningless. Think.
Sep 23, 2007 - 8:28 am 11. chuck:What he says is meaningless.
If what he said was meaningless, without import, no one would care, likewise with Columbia’s invitation. What I see is a drawing of lines and a clarification of the divide between academia and a large part of this country. The divide has been there for a long time but is now becoming stark and highly visible. In the long term, I think this visibility is a good thing, otherwise we might wake up some day and find ourselves in a new world that we had no idea was in the offing. The outcome of this fight still has me worried, but at least we can see where the sides are.
Sep 23, 2007 - 8:49 am 12. LarryD:“Is there something about the job of a university “administrator” that causes exceptionally lame people to be drawn to that career?”
Old saying:
Sep 23, 2007 - 11:14 am 13. Bill Lever:Those who can, do. Those who can’t do, teach. Those who can’t teach, administrate.
Roger,
How far we have fallen!…
I seriously doubt that the President of Columbia University from 1948 to 1953, Dwight D.Eisenhower, would have given a moment’s consideration to providing Josef Stalin with the propaganda opportunity that the current Columbia President offers Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Google searching “Columbia University Presidents” I note that Eisenhower was the last Columbia President who was not a careeer education administrator and that all since him list “additional education” either PhD or Law degrees – beyond 4 years of university.
Further on the benefits of university education, Coyote Blog (Warren Meyer in Phoenix) links to this 60- question civics survey of 50 universities:
Sep 23, 2007 - 12:15 pm 14. dryfuss:http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx
in which scores acutally dropped between freshman to senior years at:
Cal -.76%, Rutgers -.94%, Princeton -1.70%, Duke -2.25%, Yale -3.09% and Cornell -4.95%
Where are the Trustee’s to question the President’s “Payof ” in inviting this man into an institution of learning to speak and cast
Sep 23, 2007 - 3:06 pm 15. Insufficiently Sensitive:his ugly words. Whether we agree with either party we are still an independent free country, however, he represents all we are against
and should not be welcomed into any of are universities.
If Washington wants to welcome him to speak in their great hall’s
that is a political guarded invitation , however, this is not. Is the
college going to pay for his protection and if not, are our tax dollars going to be used ? We must now recognise that Pres. Bollinger, had deminished Columbia as a Gem of Higher Learning,
and he needs to think through his error in this challenge. He needs
to apologize to the student body and the nation for a very dangerous invitation to a very dangerous individual.
Herr Bollinger needs more than a few more moments of strutting and fretting in the spotlights.
His oh-so-righteous verbal attack on Herr Ahmadinajad was a transparent attempt at pandering to folks who have some concern for civil rights. Why? His conspicuous failure to prevent his student lefty-fascists from physically attacking the Minutemen who’d been invited to speak at Columbia last year – and then his even more conspicuous failure to apply any meaningful calling to account of said fascists following their televized brutality.
Obviously, to Bollinger, ‘freedom of speech’ applies to his handpicked guests, and to himself, but not to others. By his actions, he signals that certain messages should be promoted, and others suppressed. He makes a splendid Commissar, but not a University President.
The sooner he’s replaced as President of Columbia by an ex-General who has the ability to make clear moral decisions, the better for civilization in general. And while he’s still strutting and fretting in the spotlights, let him explain why his student fascists go unpunished to this day. And let him issue an apology and re-invitation to said Minutemen – or explain why they are so horrible that even Ahmadinajad is more worthy of a public voice at Columbia.
Sep 26, 2007 - 12:42 pm 16. Timothy Horrigan:Bill Lever said:
“I seriously doubt that the President of Columbia University from 1948 to 1953, Dwight D.Eisenhower, would have given a moment’s consideration to providing Josef Stalin with the propaganda opportunity that the current Columbia President offers Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.”
Hmmm, maybe or maybe not. When Ike was the commander of the Allied Forces, Stalin was one of his allies, and was in fact viewed favorably in the West. Even when he was President of Columbia, the Russkies hadn’t quite become the Incarnation of Evil. That didn’t happen till he was President of the US, and then the hysteria was based more on the idea that Commies in general were a threat to our way of life than on the idea that Stalin was a mass murderer.
Oh well, at least Stalin’s Russia WAS a threat to us. Iraq is a 4th rate power who couldn’t even beat Iran, whom we crushed (not once but twice) in about three weeks.
Sep 29, 2007 - 6:57 pm