OJ, Dan Rather and now... Lee Bollinger

Everybody wants to get in the act these days. Nobody wants to be ignored. And the Hell with Warhol. Fifteen minutes is way too short.

What other possible explanation is there for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s invitation to speak … excuse me, answer questions … at Columbia University than to make its relatively obscure president Lee Bollinger famous?

Columbia, of course, has its public explanation for the invitation: we need to know more about what the Iranian president really thinks. Come again? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s views are better known than almost anyone’s in the world. We hear them on a daily basis from numerous sources, including the man himself. At this moment “Ahmadinejad” generates 8,540,000 hits on Google in that spelling alone. The notion that one hour before an audience of Columbia University students will add anything to this but canned responses is ridiculous.

To call this a free speech issue is also absurd since Ahmadinejad’s speech (unlike many citizens of his country) has not been in the slightest restricted. Quite the reverse. He has an unlimited global megaphone.

So Lee Bollinger, in his narcissistic pomposity, is giving status to a psychotic racist and Holocaust denier. Good for Mr. Bollinger. To paraphrase what Freud said of the Gestapo, I wish him well.