The head of Columbia U. thought that he could score points with devastating rhetoric. And so he invited Crazy A. into his salon in order to make a fool out of him. He obviously was impressed by the clever remarks made by one member of the Council on Foreign Relations last year, and decided to go one better as many of us wanted to see.
But I think in the end, the snubbing would have been a better idea. Not because we are afraid of him, but simply because when it comes down to it, he's a nutcase and we all know it. And so we should treat him as just the kind of sociopath he is. If you don't have an idea how that ought to work, consider how most Americans treat OJ.
All the talk about the value of free speech means something if all you have in your arsenal are words. The leader of Iran does not need Columbia University, he can only abuse it. Beating him in a war of words is pointless when it is known that he uses guerrillas and terrorists.
Bollinger has an inflated sense of self-importance that I think is going to be over emphasized by those making points for free speech and the American way. So I don't think there's much bragging that should go on, because the hypocrisy of Bollinger's campus rules are clear. Columbia has banned ROTC from campus in its attempt to create a no-tolerance zone for insults to homosexuals. And yet they allow the man who has them executed to speak. Bollinger can practically be called disingenuous. Did he really believe that Crazy A is not 'a petty and cruel dictator'? Is he incapable of making such a judgment at a distance? If the leader of Columbia honestly believed that the leader of Iran lacked the intellectual courage to answer such questions, how is it that he is just realizing it? And now having made that determination, is the invitation still open?
If Bollinger would not invite Mahmoud Ahmadinejad back to Columbia again, now convinced that his apprehensions are indeed true, then he is finally as wise today as the Bush Administration has been all along.
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