USA - 0, Columbia - 0, President Ahmadinejad - 1

Much has been said and written about last week's controversial visit from Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Columbia University and I'm sure much more will be said and written. In 2007 many universities go out of their way to prove that they are bastions of free speech until you say something that's not popular with the faculty or president. But that's another story for another time. In this case, there was controversy before Ahmadinejad even took to the stage as many thought that Bollinger should have disinvited the president. Bollinger of course sited free speech and stated, "the scope of free speech in academic freedom should itself always be open to further debate." Well he didn't listen to the debate or better yet he didn't heed the majority of those debating whether or not Ahmadinejad should speak. And when he realized that he should have heeded the majority in this case he subjected Ahmadinejad to ridicule and upbraiding on the very stage where he claimed, "we need to understand the world we live in." It is obvious that Bollinger himself doesn't understand the world he lives in.

It was obvious to anyone listening that Bollinger had to get himself out of the drumming that he probably received from his benefactors and as such upbraided Ahmadinejad. In this transcript of the speech Bollinger states, "You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated." He goes on to state, "I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions." Ok, lets call this guy an idiot right there on the stage.

It seems to me that something is wrong here. How do you invite this guy, who we already know is a scoundrel, to speak at your university and then slap him in the face? It's like inviting someone to your house and as they sit down on your expensive couch you proceed to tell them that they are a bunch of rat bastards and you don't know why they are there. This is not what America is about? This is not about free speech. This is a farce that was perpetuated on us by the "intellectuals on high" known as Columbia University. This was a tragic misstep by an other wise supposed intellectual. What Bollinger failed to realize was that he didn't win a point for free speech he lost a point for America. Bollinger's upbraiding of Ahmadinejad under the pretense of academic freedom flies in the face of civility. As this Jonathan Glater tells us in this article, "And lofty defenses of free speech can sound cowardly to critics who believe the university's choice of speakers is ideologically biased or that a particular speaker is uniquely evil and should be denied a public platform."