Ahmadinejad was at Colubmia: An Iranian gay has surfaced

I just received a comment from Orac that should be highlighted as a post

Did Ahmadinejad know that last year's International Mr. Gay Competition had an Iranian contestant?

Turns out he lost the competition. The Israeli won. Don't you know those Jews would engineer even that??????

Ahmadinejad WAS at Columbia [16]: The Chronicle of Higher Education offers a sample of reactions [including from this blog]

The Chronical of Higher Education included my comments on Ahmadinejad's appearance in its roundup of various opinions.

Opinion: A Sampling of Views on the University's Choice and Monday's Encounter

	Even before he stepped on the campus of Columbia University on Monday, the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had become the focus of a firestorm of controversy from those who objected to the university's giving him a platform to speak. Once there, Mr. Ahmadinejad faced hostile attacks -- not the least from Lee C. Bollinger, Columbia's president -- about his views on the future of Israel, human rights and academic freedom in Iran, and the Holocaust (see article). Following is a sampling of views about the Iranian leader's visit, before and after: Mr. Bollinger: To those who believe that this event should never have happened, that it is inappropriate for the university to conduct such an event, I want to say that I understand your perspective and respect it as reasonable. ... As one of the more famous quotations about free speech goes, it is "an experiment, as all life is an experiment." ... This is the right thing to do and, indeed, it is required by existing norms of free speech, the American university, and Columbia itself. (Comments before introducing Mr. Ahmadinejad on Monday) Joe Klein, columnist: This was a terrific event. Columbia President Lee Bollinger totally, and very effectively, trashed the guy in his introduction. I would have liked a sharper question on the Holocaust: What specifically do you think is incomplete about the current research? Do you believe that six million Jews were killed? What do you think further research might reveal? And how to do you evaluate Adolf Hitler as a national leader? Bottom line: This sort of freedom always works to our benefit. Those who screeched that an Ahmadinejad appearance would be terrible, a travesty of something or other, seem sort of silly now. (Actually, I thought they seemed sort of silly before.) (Swampland, Time) Jonah Goldberg, columnist: I was against the invitation, I still am. I am no great fan of Bollinger's. But I must give credit where due. His opening statement is about as hard-hitting and tough as one could hope for. This may still be a debacle, but there's a possible benefit more plausible than I imagined just minutes before this began. If the video of Bollinger's statement is distributed throughout the Middle East in general and Iran in particular, it could have a very positive effect. Time will tell. (The Corner, National Review Online) Deborah E. Lipstadt, Emory University: Bollinger was first rate. He told [Ahmadinejad] his Holocaust denial makes him ridiculous. He attacked him for his persecution of scholars, women, and dissenters. He called him to account for his threats to destroy Israel. It was powerful, and it was moving. If this event had to happen, this was the best beginning possible. I am sure there will be those who will critique Bollinger for being so hard-hitting. I say bravo, but also dissent from his attempt to say this appearance is a fundamental reflection of free speech. As soon as Ahmadinejad began to speak, it was clear that he was not prepared for such a statement. He made it sound like he did not even know who Bollinger was. Said it was insulting to have to listen to such things. Ahmadinejad probably never had to sit through such a hard-hitting critique of his record. (Deborah Lipstadt's Blog) Hugh Hewitt, blogger: Whenever Lee Bollinger steps down as Columbia's president, some poor fool will toast him for his "stirring" speech today, for speaking truth to power, blah blah blah. Nonsense. President Bollinger gave Ahmadinejad a microphone and a stage and then tried to use the underbilling to redeem his university's sorry complicity in the legitimizing of this fanatic's place in the world. Columbia ... can deliver stern lectures that go unheard in the Islamist world, but it won't remove the stain on its own reputation: It played a role of accessory to many lies today, delivered by a killer of our troops. (Townhall.com) Andrew Sullivan, blogger: I haven't gone off on the Columbia invite because it seems superfluous. I take a very broad view of free-speech rights in America, but I would never have invited a dictator and religious extremist like Ahmadinejad. So far, it seems his usual blend of glibness, guile, and gall is exposing him to ridicule, as it should. If there are no gays in his country, why is he hanging so many of them? But I wonder: Would Columbia ever invite a right-wing extremist with the same views as Ahmadinejad on women, gays, Israel, and the Holocaust? Or do you have to be a brown-skinned, terrorist-enabling, nuclear-proliferating, certifiable nut-job to get the invite? (The Daily Dish, TheAtlantic.com) Bradley Burston, columnist: Let us look, instead, at what the Iranian president represents for us, the Jews who live in the state he has suggested he'd like to see erased. Let's face it. We need all the help we can get, on the diplomatic sphere as well as in the area of international understanding of our defense concerns. That's where our man in Tehran comes in. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is simply one of Israel's premier diplomatic and security assets. His expressed views make Israel look pragmatic, clear-eyed, non-paranoid. ... Let the man talk. Let the Iranian president speak his mind, all he wants. You never know what favor he's going to do us next. (Ha'aretz) William Kristol, editor: It should go without saying that the appropriate thing to do, when the Iranian ambassador called Columbia, would have been to say: No thanks. Or just, No. But that would be to expect too much of one of today's Ivy League university presidents. ... Meanwhile: As Columbia welcomes Ahmadinejad to campus, Columbia students who want to serve their country cannot enroll in the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) at Columbia. Columbia students who want to enroll in ROTC must travel to other universities to fulfill their obligations. ROTC has been banned from the Columbia campus since 1969. In 2003, a majority of polled Columbia students supported reinstating ROTC on campus. But in 2005, when the Columbia faculty senate debated the issue, President Bollinger joined the opponents in defeating the effort to invite ROTC back on campus. A perfect synecdoche for too much of American higher education: They are friendlier to Ahmadinejad than to the U.S. military. (The Weekly Standard) Juan Cole, University of Michigan: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to New York to address the United Nations General Assembly has become a media circus. But the controversy does not stem from the reasons usually cited. The media has focused on debating whether he should be allowed to speak at Columbia University on Monday, or whether his request to visit Ground Zero, the site of the September 11 attack in lower Manhattan, should have been honored. His request was rejected, even though Iran expressed sympathy with the United States in the aftermath of those attacks and Iranians held candlelight vigils for the victims. Iran felt that it and other Shiite populations had also suffered at the hands of Al Qaeda, and that there might now be an opportunity for a new opening to the United States. Instead, the U.S. State Department denounced Ahmadinejad as himself little more than a terrorist. ... The real reason his visit is controversial is that the American right has decided the United States needs to go to war against Iran. Ahmadinejad is therefore being configured as an enemy head of state. (Salon) Danny Postel, journalist: While Ahmadinejad occupies center stage, we would be well served to consider another Iranian, the dissident and former political prisoner Akbar Ganji, who has just issued an open letter to the U.N. secretary general that refuses what Slavoj Zizek calls the "double blackmail": Ganji describes the human-rights crisis currently gripping Iran -- the severe crackdown on dissent, the crushing of progressive voices; while at the same time he denounces the Bush administration's saber rattling and underscores that Iran's democratic struggle wants no financial assistance from the U.S. (or any foreign government), and is in fact put in grave jeopardy by such maneuvers. The letter is signed by some of the preeminent intellectuals and writers in the world (Jürgen Habermas, Orhan Pamuk, Noam Chomsky, J.M. Coetzee, and, appropriately enough, Zizek). It's dangerously easy to become distracted by the circus surrounding Ahmadinejad's visit, a disfigured drama in which right-wing political figures and their stenographers in the media feverishly attempt to whip up jingoistic feelings. That right-wing assault can run an interference pattern on our thinking, where we react by protesting Ahmadinejad's shabby treatment at the hands of a bellicose political and media establishment. (Comment Is Free, Guardian Unlimited)

Ahmadinejad was at Columbia [15]: About those homosexuals who don't exist in Iran....

Here are some questions for the Iranian president:

If there are no homosexuals in Iran who were all those people who were sentenced to death and executed by your regime for homosexuality?

Were they falsely charged by the the courts?

And now Jeannie Moost CNN is doing a humorous spot poking fun at him.... He's the butt of jokes... The Court Jester... And he did it to himself.

Ahmadinejad was at Columbia: Now he's cavorting with some so-called rabbis

The Iranian news agency, IRNA reports that Ahmadinejad met with "rabbis" in New York who gave him a silver grail [?].

Of course it was those low life Neturei Karta folks who call themselves rabbis. Apparently they took time out from checking who has the most beautiful lulav and etrog to make nice with a man who rises to their level, Ahmadinejad.

According to IRNA they carried a placard which read; "I am Jewish, not a Zionist."

Anything I could say about them I would be sorry I wrote. Use your imagination. But don't do so aloud, you will be embarrassed.

Ahmadinejad was at Columbia [13]: This blog's observations picked up by HNN [History News Network]

Excerpts from this blog were picked up by the HNN, the History News Network.

Ahmadinejad was at Columbia [12]: As predicted Bollinger's hard hitting remarks are excoriated [and praised]

As I predicted, while listening to Bollinger's hard hitting comments [which can be read here] about Ahmadinejad, many people have criticized him for being ungracious to the Iranian.

This man has persecuted academics, women, homosexuals [oops there are none in Iran] and when he is called on it these critics don't like it.

Ahmadinejad IS AT Colubmia [11]: More on the Holocaust , women's rights, and homosexuals in Iran [there are none]

[Still listening to webcast of speech]
Question to Ahmadinejad: why is more research necessary on the Holocaust [as you say it is] if everything has been so well documented?

Oy. Even as this is being asked I see what's coming. This is an example of a poorly worded question: OF COURSE THERE IS ROOM FOR MORE RESEARCH. [Witness the information which has emerged with the publication of the SS album. What else would historians be doing if not discovering new information]

But what Ahmadinejad says is he wants "MORE RESEARCH TO DISCOVER THE FACTS." In other words he is arguing that the truth of the event itself is not fully known.

Ahmadinejad says: Well what about physics? We know a lot about physics but we keep studying it? Who says we already know everything?

He seems to be slipping out of this one.

But Coatsworth, who is chairing the event, is calling him on it. Good for him. [Even if he would have invited Hitler...] Coatsworth responds to Ahmadinejad's answer by saying that we have certain facts which are established about an event. What you, Mr. President, are doing is calling for more research not to "fill in the details" but to "establish the facts." And establishing the basic facts, Coatsworth points out, is NOT necessary since they have been firmly established.

Ahmadinejad is filibustering.

Now on to women: According to Ahmadinejad women in Iran are completely free.... women are more respected than men...

Coatsworth asked him about the execution of homosexuals.

Ahmadinejad gives some BREAKING NEWS: THERE ARE NO HOMOSEXUALS IN IRAN. Ahmadinejad wonders who told you such a thing?

The audience got a good laugh. My guess is that this is what most of the students will remember.

Finally, when asked about negotiations with the US he said they would negotiate with everyone except apartheid South Africa, which has been eliminated, and with the Zionist entity.

Coatsworth did get the last word in by saying that he was sorry there was not enough time for Ahmadinejad to answer all the questions that had been submitted or even some of the ones that had been asked.

Ahmadinejad IS AT Colubmia [10]: Finally he gets to the point ... It's all about the Palestinians

He closed with a ringing attack on Israel and the treatment of the Palestinians. This is what it's all about.

Then he slips into the Holocaust and claims that those who want to research the Holocaust from "a different perspective" are put in jail. Why is that so?

It's one of his slippery moments. His call for more research regarding the Holocaust is what Shiraz Dossa, a professor in Canada who went to the meeting in Iran, calls "Holocaust neutrality." [Dossa is trying to legitimize questioning the Holocaust.] But Holocaust neutrality is naught but denial.

Now Coatsworth is pushing him to answer a question: Do you seek the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state?

Long discourse. But no answer.

Coatsworth tries to get him to answer.

To no avail.

Ahmadinejad IS AT Colubmia [9]: Bollinger hits a homerun [in a game which should never have been played]

I am listening to the Columbia forum. Bollinger began with a truly hard hitting statement expressing his revulsion at all that Ahmadinejad represents. He challenged Ahmadinejad to invite him and a group of students and faculty to come to Iran to speak to university students about free speech, in the same way that Ahmadinejad is benefiting today.

Bollinger was first rate.

He told him his Holocaust denial makes him ridiculous.

He attacked him for his persecution of scholars, women, and dissenters.

He called him to account for his threats to destroy Israel.

It was powerful and it was moving. If this event had to happen, this was the best beginning possible.

I am sure there will be those who will critique Bollinger for being so hard hitting.

I say bravo but also dissent from his attempt to say this appearance is a fundamental reflection of free speech.

As soon as Ahmadinejad began to speak it was clear that he was not prepared for such a statement. He made it sound like he did not even know who Bollinger was. Said it was insulting to have to listen to such things.

Ahmadinejad probably never had to sit through such a hard hitting critique of his record. It reminded me of a miscalculation made by David Irving when he chose the courtroom as his venue to make his argument. There was a judge there with the authority to make him stop his polemics and who could point out when he was making things up out of whole cloth [i.e. lying].

So too Ahmadinejad had to sit there and listen to his record in a way that he probably never has had to do. It also points out why the Scott Pelley's of the world are such poor excuses for interviewers. He could have asked some of these questions instead of his idiot queries.

Now Ahmadinejad is engaging in a religious discourse. My guess is that most students present have no idea where he is going with this. I think it is his attempt to sound like an intellect and some who believes in the pursuit of truth. It is a real miscalculation of his audience, I think...

Too bad his record contradicts everything he is saying....

More later.....

Ahmadinejad coming to Colubmia [8]: Politicians are as dense as members of the academy

Well it looks like some local NYC and NY state politicos want to punish Columbia for inviting Ahmadinejad. [Story in NY Sun] This is utterly stupid. It will backfire and make people such as myself -- who has minced no words on how venal I think the invitation to the Iranian is -- say that the politicos have gone way overboard.

The last thing we need is a bunch of politicians trying to control what goes on at a university... Aren't things bad enough as they are now???

This is as much of a politically correct idiocy as inviting Ahmadinejad in the name of free speech.

Ahmadinejad going to Columbia University [7]: An insightful comment from a reader of this blog

Steve has posted the following response. His comments are so on the mark that I thought I would post them directly [not just as a response] to give them maximum exposure.

Here is what kills me about his talk at Columbia today. I was a senior administrator who would have been in the eye of the storm (and have been) during an incident like this. I have been there.

And I start with the obligatory and fully sincere fact that few things about my country makes me prouder than the first amendment. You might laugh: But one of my proudest moments was explaining to a foreign visitor that this was a country so sure of itself, so confident that freedom made it stronger, that we were confident enough to even allow people to burn flags and know that the Republic would stay strong.

Having said that, free speech means that a speaker gets to say what he or she wants, within the well known constitutional "fire in the theater" limits. It does not mean that any given institution has to provide a forum for any speaker.

I might feel that universitities should have a "presumption that someone can speak" principle, but they should also remember that their platform is a valuable commodity and that, while letting someone speak does not mean the University supports the views, they have given the speaker a special gift that other less prestigious institutions cannot provide.

Now I think this gift should be given very freely, but not promiscuously. In fact, the standards for getting the gift and legitimacy of a Columbia platform should be minimal, perhaps only requiring that the person have given some small civil consideration in return.

What I am leading to is that Ahmadinejad, by refusing basic scrutiny of his nuclear program and by continuing to imply his willingness to engage in acts of annihilation, acts that could lead to an incident that would make Dresden and London look like target practice, has not given the world that consideration.

Not doing this means he has essentially said: "I will not give you even the most simple assurance that I will won't accidentally destroy you, much less purposefully do so.

So I would not have given him the platform.

And I haven't even touched on his Holocaust denial idiocy, which means that -- in return for the gift of the visibility and legitimacy of a Columbia logo on the platform, he wouldn't even provide the simple consideration of acknowledging the death of 100, much less than 6 million, Jews.

So, my threshhold was minimal when I had the call about some speakers , and some pretty creepy creeps spoke under my watch. 90% of the time the platform revealed then to be idiots. A few times they made sense.

President A. has not met that minimal standard.

The UN cannot have that standard, so that is his proper forum.

We are a free marketplace of ideas. Ideas joust for respect and attention and win or lose. But a Columbia forum essentially rigs the free market. It gives him valuable symbolic capital in which to frame his views, which doesn't just put him in the marketplace, it advantages him!

And without providing even the most crude and minimal consideration in return.

Ahmadinejad going to Columbia University [6]: A Columbia student doesn't know what she thinks

On Morning Edition [NPR] a Columbia student was just quoted as saying, "I don't know what to think of him if I don't really know what he stands for. Let him come and speak and then I can be really angry." [I am paraphrasing slightly]

Could someone explain to me what this student is doing at Columbia if she doesn't know what Ahmadinejad stands for? Doesn't she read a newspaper? Is she living under a rock?

Here is a check list for her:
1. Religious freedom in Iran [except for fervently religious Muslims]
2. Academic freedom in Iran [except for those who follow the government line]
3. The existence of Israel ["wipe it off the map"]
4. The historical fact of the Holocaust
5. Iraq's right to decide its own future

This only a partial list.

I wonder if she knows that Haleh Esfandiari, the much respected director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, was jailed in Iran for a number of months and that other scholars still sit in jail.

I guess this airhead Columbia student never heard about any of these things. I doubt that she will hear them from Ahmadinejad at today's talk. I do suspect that Bollinger will raise the issue in his introduction.

Ahmadinejad going to Columbia [5]: Comments on his talk

Check out the Columbia Spectator's most recent article on the visit and a host of comments and responses. According to the Spectator the visit will be available on the web. I hope to be watching and commenting.

The Spectator has prepared a special section on the visit available in a pdf format.

Ahmadinejad on 60 Minutes [4]: Scott Pelley gets walked over and doesn't notice....A prelude of things to come tomorrow at Columbia??

I am sitting here watching "60 Minutes" as Scott Pelley tries to skewer Ahmadinejad.

I am having a hard time believing the dumb questions he is pitching to him. He points out that Iranian weapons are being used in Iraq against American forces. Then Pelley says: "You have American blood on your hands. WHY?"

What kind of question is that??? "WHY?" The answer is obvious because to Ahmadinejad the United States is an enemy.

He fails to challenge Ahmadinejad's claim that nuclear weapons are not important because the age of nuclear weapons has passed.

Now Pelley has asked a completely stupid question: "What trait do you admire in President Bush?" What's that have to do with anything? International relations are not about "admiring" one another. This is not about being a mutual admiration society.

Complete soft ball and idiotic.

Now he's reading him a statement that Bush made about what he thinks of Ahmadinejad. Has Pelley lost his mind?

And then Pelley has a nice laugh with him as he protests that he's only a simple American reporter. Well he got that one right. Simple and simple minded.

This reminds me of Mike Wallace's equally idiotic encounter with Ahmadinejad in which the Iranian ran complete circles around Wallace.

What an idiotic performance and my guess is what we will see at Columbia will be no better. After all anyone, such as Lee Bollinger, who thinks you can dialogue with this guy is already starting with one hand tied behind his back.

Ahmadinejad going to Columbia [3]: Politically Correct Idiocy: Dean would have invited Hitler to a dialogue

Columbia's Dean John H. Coatsworth, in the name of defending the university's invitation to Ahmadinejad, told Fox News that the institute would have invited Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler to appear before students had he been willing to participate in an open debate.

This is one of those posts that needs no comment.

Ahmadinejad going to Columbia University [2]

As I observed in the previous post, Ahmadinejad is going to speak tomorrow at Columbia University. This morning on NPR Columbia President Lee Bollinger was quoted as saying that, while he was going to introduce Ahmadinejad by listing his human rights abuses, addressing his Holocaust denial, and castigating his calls for the destruction of Israel, he believed that Ahmadinejad had a place at Columbia because university's are places for "dialogue."

Bollinger has issued a statement in which he describes Columbia "as a community dedicated to learning and scholarship, is committed to confronting ideas.... Necessarily, on occasion this will bring us into contact with beliefs many, most or even all of us will find offensive and even odious."

What Bollinger and a lot of other very smart people don't understand is that you cannot dialogue with a liar. They make up facts, create their own reality, and leave you twisting in the wind.

Columbia has given Holocaust deniers everywhere a tremendous victory. He has made their claims and "other side" of a debate.

Secondly, while I hate the glib comparisons to Hitler [from the right and from the left], a not so off the mark comparison has been made between inviting Hitler in the 1930s [early 1930s] and inviting Ahmadinejad today.

For elaboration of this see Raphael Medoff's column at the website of the David Wyman Instittue Columbia University has a record of being open to Nazi representatives throughout the 1930s. It, of course, is not alone in this regard. Harvard did as well. And my guess that lots of other universities did the same.

All in the name of dialogue.

Ahmadinejad going to Columbia University [1]

Seems that Ahmadinejad is going to speak at Columbia University. I find it galling. I just listened to some Columbia faculty and students talking about how universities are places for "dialogue" and for people to talk "with one another."

True. But this is a man who has called for the destruction of Israel [wipe off the face of the map] and who has denied the Holocaust.

If he had denied American slavery or the Armenian Genocide would these same students be saying we should "dialogue" with him?

I think not.

The people at Columbia who invited him have minds that are so open their brains fell out.