| | Disgraceful Display By Lee BollingerWell I must say after listening to the introduction of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by Lee Bollinger, President of Columbia University, that I wonder where Mr. Bollinger was coming from. Mind you, I think the content of his opening remarks was on target, but I don't understand why he chose to disrespect a man who he had invited to come speak. Surely that was not a proper introduction. The comments and questions he presented were valid enough, but they could and should have been presented in the Q&A portion of the program.
Whether or not Ahmadinejad should have been invited to speak is beside the point. You don't invite a man to speak and then tell him he is remarkably uneducated, hasn't got the intellectual courage to answer the questions that will be put forth, and call him evil to his face even before he opens his mouth. That is not what I would expect from a member of the faculty of a school known for its training of diplomats.
Perhaps he was trying to recover from a very public, and perhaps privately embarrassing, display of poor judgment in extending the invitation to begin with. Or perhaps he was trying to avoid possible retaliation for his poor judgement by denial of State funds for various university projects and withheld contributions from alumni. Or was the invitation given for the sole purpose of giving Mr. Bollinger an opportunity to make sure Ahmadinejad would hear what he, Bollinger, thought of him. Whatever it was, his opening remarks were disgraceful and reflect poorly on Mr. Bollinger and on Columbia University. |
| | Posted 9/25/2007 3:43 AM - 5 comments
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