[Latest items on top]
Venezuela News and Views: “One wonders at Columbia receiving someone who has made the destruction of Israel his personal pet project. Is there any discussion, dialogue possible with such a person? I do not think so, and the Columbia board is looking mighty stupid in receiving someone who has been put on the shit list of even a country like France.”
Sigmund, Carl and Alfred: “Ahmadenijad’s absurd assertion that there are no gays in Iran just like saying there is no persecution of women, Jews, Bahai’s and Christians in that nation. His psychopathic remarks fly in the face of reality. If he can look at the audience at Columbia and shamelessly make such ridiculous remarks, to believe his other remarks speaks to the stupidity of those who find him credible.”
Dr. Sanity: “Having invited Ahmadinejad to speak at Columbia in the first place accomplished every possible goal that the President of Iran and the Mullahs could have possibly wished for in the propaganda war.”
New York Daily News: Grinning Madman Squirms At Columbia
The New York Post: A Lesson in Absurdity
Washington Post: A Hostile Reception, a Rambling Talk
Reuters: Outrage Turns To Laughter
Kevin Drum: “Am I the only liberal who believes all that stuff but is still pretty queasy about letting this lunatic engage in some wreath-laying crocodile tears at Ground Zero? There’s a difference between being unafraid to let someone speak and being unwilling to let him use the most venerated site in the country for a crass PR stunt, isn’t there? Hell, a lot of us complain when Rudy Giuliani does this, let alone a guy who denies the Holocaust and has made a career out of chanting “Death to America.” Am I off base here?”
Jules Crittenden answers for him.
Iranian university chancellors fire back at Columbia president Lee Bollinger, challenging him to answer 10 questions. (Fars)
Full text of Columbia U. president Lee Bollinger’s opening remarks.
Israel Matzav: Israel was the big loser yesterday.
Andrew Sullivan: The Queer Left Backs Ahmadinejad, according to an email from the Columbia Queer Alliance.
American Digest: “None of this could have happened if Bollinger and Columbia had not exercised their right to invite whom they wish to speak on campus. Spare me the plaints about who they do and do not invite and who they disinvite. That is not relevant to this issue. What they did in the past and what they may do in the future does not in any way diminish the effectiveness of what happened [yesterday]. Spare me to the lame excuse that Bollinger only did it because of “the criticism.” You have no means of knowing that other than inside your own imagination. And even if it were the case….. So What? [Yesterday], to be brief, “freedom of speech” worked as it should work. It revealed the truth.”
Unlike the U.S. media, the Iranian State News Agency thinks (surprise!) that the Columbia speech was a smashing success (but can’t spell the name of the university correctly.
Interesting Timing: Iran releases American-Iranian activist Ali Shakeri immediately before Ahmadinejad’s UN speech.
Michelle Malkin Vents from the New York demonstrations.
Mere Rhetoric has shocking photos of the executions of Iran’s “non-existent” homosexuals
Join the conversation as a VIP Member