Columbia University has invited Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad to speak tomorrow at its world leaders conference. But it
was the spinless university president-speak by Columbia President Lee
Bollinger that really grated. According to the NY Sun:
“I happen to find many of
President Ahmadinejad’s stated beliefs to be repugnant, a view that I’m
sure is widely shared within our university community,” Mr. Bollinger
said. “So whether or not all of the special arrangements needed for
such a visit can be made in this unusually short period of time, I have
no doubt that Columbia students and faculty would use an open exchange
to challenge him sharply and are fully capable of reaching their own
conclusions.”
What pap, straight from the
Moeser school of presidential declarations. When is an American
university president going to have the guts to say something like:
“You know,
whatever idiot at this university invited this madman to speak here is
going to get my foot in his keester. There is no way a respected
university should be associated with such a dangerous man. There is no
circumstance in which our students could benefit from any encounter
with this maniac. Let him go to Harvard.”
