Ahmadinejad Confronted at Columbia

I don't know who's more shocked, me or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Lee Bollinger was Lucy to Ahmadinejad's Charlie Brown last night at Columbia; both Mahmoud and I figured he was going to get a free kick, but President Bollinger to his credit pulled the ball away and Mahmoud took a tumble. When I read the front page article in the Post-Dispatch this morning, was I ever surprised. Not only did an American academic confront evil, the Post reported it!

Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defended Holocaust deniers and raised questions about who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks in a tense showdown Monday at Columbia University, where the school's head introduced the visitor by calling him a "petty and cruel dictator."

Ahmadinejad, appearing shaken by what he called "insults" from his host, sought to portray himself as an intellectual and argued that his regime had respect for reason and science. But the former engineering professor soon found himself drawn into the type of rhetoric that has alienated American audiences in the past.

He provoked derisive laughter by responding to a question about Iran's execution of homosexuals by saying: "In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country. … I don't know who's told you that we have this."

Man, did I ever misjudge President Bollinger:

Bollinger drew strong criticism for inviting Ahmadinejad to Columbia and had promised tough questions in his introduction. But the stridency of his attack on the Iranian leader took many by surprise.

"You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated," Bollinger told Ahmadinejad about the leader's Holocaust denial. "Will you cease this outrage?"

While I wasn't the only one (pleasantly) surprised, apparently I'm in the minority. I admit it, I thought Columbia was going to roll over on it's belly like a submissive dog, but instead the Hound of Cullan showed up.

It's one thing to call people names when you know that person isn't going to do a thing to you and you aren't looking evil in the eye (yes, I include all those people who compare Bush to Hitler); it's another to be on the stage with a man, President of a ruthlessly repressive government who doesn't hesitate to order the torture and death of his own people, who murders via proxy (Hezbollah, Hamas) civilians in neighboring countries, and who is currently waging a proxy war with America in Iraq, look him in the eye, and call him out. Believe me, if that happened in Iran, Bollinger would be dead now. That takes both moral and physical courage, a couple of virtues that I thought was totally lacking in today's Universities.

Lee C. Bollinger, you da man!

And no, I don't think calling out Ahmadinejad, even though he's the face, not the brains and muscle behind the current dictatorship, is disrespectful of Iran and it's rich and ancient culture. Iran and Iranians deserve better than Ahmadinejad and the mullahs behind him, but I can understand their reluctance after being burned by the 1979 revolution that brought the current religious dictatorship to power to have another go at revolution.