Columbia Recap

Okay, so Columbia University gave a microphone and a podium to a crazy third-world dictator. Should they have done it? Absolutely not, in my opinion. However, there's no taking it back now, and there may be some silver lining here. First, the president of Columbia, Lee Bollinger, raked Ahmadinejad over the coals before the Iranian president's speech with statements like, "you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator" and calling on him to answer a series of questions on killing homosexuals, oppressing women, killing Americans in Iraq, denying the Holocaust, and so forth. He finished by saying "I doubt you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions."


What the heck...!

This was the sort of treatment that one could expect to come from a fierce conservative pundit, not from the president of ultra-liberal Columbia University! As welcome as it was to hear, it was a shock to pretty much everyone. Of course, Ahmedinejad didn't actually answer any of those questions, and no on really appeared to push him too hard after the fact. But, it was still a major, major surprise.

The other potential silver lining is that by giving Ahmadinejad such a major platform from which to spout his verbal filth, he illustrated to the world just how unstable he really is. Dana Milbank in the Washington Post has a terrific article recounting many of his statements compared to reality. A couple examples:

Ahmadinejad: "For hundreds of years, we've lived in friendship and brotherhood with the people of Iraq."
Milbank: That's true -- as long as you don't count the little unpleasantness of the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, when a million people died, some by poison gas. And you'd also have to overlook 500 years of fighting during the Ottoman Empire.

Ahmadinejad: "Our people are the freest people in the world"
Milbank: ...said the man whose government executes dissidents, jails academics and stones people to death.

Ahmadinejad: "The freest women in the world are women in Iran"
Milbank: [he] neglecting to mention that Iranian law treats a woman as half of a man.

Later, at the National Press Building videoconference, moderator Jerry Zremski of the Buffalo News asked a few more questions that further illustrated Ahmadinejad's disconnect with reality:

Zremski inquired about the Amnesty International report finding flogging and imprisonment of journalists and at least 11 Iranian newspapers closed. "I think people who prepared the report are unaware of the situation in Iran," the president answered. "I think the people who give this information should seek what is the truth and, sort of, disseminate what's correct."

Zremski then raised the specific cases of two Kurdish journalists who have been sentenced to death for enmity toward God.

"This news is fundamentally wrong," Ahmadinejad replied. "What journalist has been sentenced to death?"

Zremski supplied the names of Kurdish journalists Adnan Hassanpour and Hiva Boutimar, sentenced July 16. "I don't know people by that name," the president retorted. "You have to, sort of, rectify the information channel."

A pattern had emerged. Zremski asked about the beating and torture of women's rights leaders. "Can you again tell me where you get this report from?" Ahmadinejad asked innocently.

Zremski asked about Ahmadinejad's assertion, at a news conference last month, that Iran is "prepared to fill the gap" of power in Iraq as U.S. influence declines. "Well, again, this, too, is one of those distortions by the press," he answered.

And those Iranian weapons showing up in Iraq? "No, this doesn't exist," he said.

Remember, this guy has publicly stated he believes his purpose in life is to start a nuclear war with Israel and the United States, and he is actively working toward obtaining nuclear weapons. As if that isn't bad enough, he's clearly nuts. He needs to be stopped before he can do some incredible damage.

Incidentally, it appears the U.S. is already on a path toward war with Iran.

Good. Let's take him out before he nukes somebody.

There's my two cents.