Columbia U; Ahmadinejad’s just an idea guy

Well, we’ve just watched political correctness jump the shark. Columbia University’s President, this Bollinger guy, through the vocal chords of this Dean John Coatsworth fellow has declared that Columbia would have given a forum to a 1939 Adolph Hitler. But the difference between a 1939 Hitler and a 2007 Ahmadinejad is that the 2007 Ahmadinejad has already been responsible for American deaths – would Columbia University lend a forum to a 1944 Hitler? That is the appropriate comparison.

Regardless, the little knucklehead from that backwards sandpit will speak, if he doesn’t show up at Columbia, he’ll teleconference to a National Press Club luncheon. Whatever will that accomplish? Who in the National Press Club thinks that anything newsworthy will come out of the opportunity for the Iranian President and former kidnapping terrorist to speak to members of the National Press Club?

In fact, what will be accomplished, what will be newsworthy or beneficial to any student at Columbia University from listening to the half-pint soccer star wannabe? Even when Columbia University allows a new opinion, a legitimate opinion, a US opinion contrary to what students might hear in their sequestered university surroundings, is presented, they reject it outright because of their tiny closed minds and they won’t allow others to hear the opposing opinion.

So why would Columbia University allow Ahmadinejad speak? To stick their finger in the eye of the Estabishment. The Man. The Bush Administration. Whyelse? It’s fashionable…New York City, Columbia University fashionable.

In today’s Washington Times, Robert Stacy McCain writes;

At Columbia, more than 800 students have joined an online group organizing a protest against the appearance by the Iranian president, who has called for the destruction of Israel.

University President Lee Bollinger has said the Ahmadinejad invitation is in keeping with “Columbia’s long-standing tradition of serving as a major forum for robust debate.”

Well, unless it’s the Minute Men or John McCain, of course. The Times’ McCain reminds us of the hypocrisy;

While Columbia is going ahead with its plans to host Mr. Ahmadinejad, the University of California rescinded its invitation to another prominent figure — former Harvard President Lawrence Summers.

Mr. Summers, who drew worldwide attention for his comments that biological differences may partly explain the dearth of women among the very highest achieving scientists, was supposed to speak about pursuing academic excellence to university chancellors and the UC system’s board of regents at an informal dinner last week. But the invitation angered some faculty at UC’s Davis campus, who circulated a petition opposing Mr. Summers’ visit and collected more than 300 signatures.

“Inviting a keynote speaker who has come to symbolize gender and racial prejudice in academia conveys the wrong message to the University community and to the people of California,” the petition reads.

But Ahmadinejad is strong defender of women’s rights, isn’t he? Well, as long as they wear the clothes he approves and they don’t mind being stoned for their own rape. Seems to me that the NOW gals would have something to say about allowing this goofball to have a forum.

And what could he possibly say that has value? We already know he has an ignorant world view;

Ahmadinejad said the American people have been denied “correct information,” and his visit will give them a chance to hear a different voice, the official IRNA news agency reported.

“The United States is a big and important country with a population of 300 million. Due to certain issues, the American people in the past years have been denied correct and clear information about global developments and are eager to hear different opinions,” Ahmadinejad was quoted by IRNA as saying.

And what “incorrect information” have we been given?

Ahmadinejad, who has called the Holocaust “a myth,” encouraged the destruction of Israel and supported terrorists in Iraq….

If I met a guy on the street and he expressed those views, I’d dismiss him as a crackpot and walk away – but we give foreigners a special forum when they express those views;

Ahmadinejad is using America with his visit as a propaganda tool, Brad Blakeman of Freedom’s Watch told FOX News.

“He’s using America, he’s using our democracy as a tool against us,” Blakeman said.

Exactly – and that’s why Columbia is giving him a forum in which to propagate this basura. It’s how northeast liberals assuage their guilt over their own wealth and padded stations in life.

Northeast liberals like the “Columbia Coalition Against the War” (h/t Hot Air) who honestly fear Ahmadinejad because refusing him a forum might cause a war;

We fear the demonization of Ahmadinejad, because we think this demonization contributes to the likelihood of war.  In the current climate, with many on the political right in the U.S. and Israel pushing for air strikes, a campaign against Ahmadinejad is dangerous, regardless of the intentions of most involved.  A call to action, unless it prominently rules out war, implies military action.

A rally where each speaker denounces Ahmadinejad’s reactionary policies and just a few call explicitly for military action will still be perceived, on campus and around the U.S., as pro-war.

Pro-war? As opposed to “pro-peace at any cost”? I wonder how these “students” (who apparently think they know everything already – not realizing that students are idiots who have much to learn simply by being students in the first place) would feel about Hamid Karzai or Pervez Musharraf speaking at Columbia about the students’ misperceptions about their respective countries.

I guess they don’t realize Ahmadinejad’s penchant for being a bloody dictator as told by Amil Imani;

The 7th century barbaric rule of Sharia has caused millions of Iranians to flee their country. Those remaining have been subject to mass slaughtering, thousands upon thousands of fabricated arrests and thousands more torn away from their homes and their families. They have been subjected to tortures, made to confess to crimes they never committed, and then been either exterminated or sent back to medieval Islamic torture chambers where they simply faded away. It is difficult for many people to even talk about these horrible tragedies and genocides, which continue to exist to this date in Iran.

Similar to the Nazis who possessed a vast and destructive power apparatus, its new rival, the Islamic Republic, is on the same path of destroying the civilized world. Why the world “looks the other way” about the homicidal, genocidal actions of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is a very good question many Iranians would like to have answered.

Even northeast liberal Michael Bloomberg shows a little bit of common sense;

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday that the university was free to invite Ahmadinejad to speak, but “personally, I wouldn’t go to listen to him—I don’t care about what he says.”

A White House spokesman challenged Ahmadinejad to allow the same free speech he emands from us in his own country;

This is a country where people can come and speak their minds,” [Tony Fratto] said, adding, “It would be wonderful if some of the countries that take advantage of that here allowed it for their own citizens there.”

It’s not a free speech issue – everyone in this country has the right to say what they want, anywhere they want. What they don’t have guarenteed is an audience. Nearly every blogger has learned that. My condemnation of Columbia University is that they take some third world goat roping murdering terrorist off of the street and present him as if he has something of value to offer the world, knowing in advance that he certainly does not. He has no ideas worth discussing – and we all know that no one at Columbia has the huevos to discuss anything with him beyond, as Robin from Chickenhawk Express said in her comment here earlier this weekend “Boxers or briefs?”

Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs says “Sue the Bastards” (she means CU) and finds the planet’s tallest dwarf at the Ritz-Carlton and wonders if the 12th Imam has an adjoining suite. Pam Meister says it’s just another reason to withdraw from the UN. Boker Tov, Boulder! says the midget wannabe mullah will be on ’60 Minutes’ tonight, too. Curt at Flopping Aces reports that the hypocrisy is pretty blatant. Gateway Pundit finds Muslims against the little fella’s forum. Little Green Footballs speculates on the type of people who’ll show up seriously interested in what the dwarf has to say. Michele Malkin says he also plans to meet “9-11 families and war critics”. My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy’s Beth says they really did invite Hitler to speak – imagine my surprise. Wild Thing at PC Free Zone wraps Ahmadinejad in bacon and claims Reagan would have stopped him from visiting New York. Right Voices has the details on the National Press Club tele-luncheon (Note to NPC members, the deli down stairs is much better than the luncheon fare at NPC – trust me. And in this case, the entertainment will be much better). Rick Moran at the Right Wing Nut House writes “The Devil Went Down to Columbia” Patterico says that maybe using Hitler as an example isn’t the best way to convince Americans that Columbia made a good choice. And I’m sure Hatemonger’s Quarterly would have something to say about Ahmadinejad, except that the “crack young staff” has a government mandate to discuss OJ Simpson.

Update: LGF reports that Ahmadinejad (I’m so proud that I can spell that without looking it up anymore) is converting DailyKos lesbians.

By the way, today is my birthday so please give me the gift I crave most – the gift of traffic and comments.

Category: Media, Politics, Society