Posted on 09/26/2007 7:02:29 AM PDT by IrishMike
A backlash against the president of Columbia University, Lee Bollinger, who on Monday delivered a harsh rebuke to President Ahmadinejad, is coming from faculty members and students who said he struck an "insulting tone" and that his remarks amounted to "schoolyard taunts." The fierceness of Mr. Bollinger's critique bought the Iranian some sympathy on campus that he didn't deserve, the critics said, and amounted to a squandered opportunity to provide a lesson in diplomacy.
Mr. Bollinger opened a two-hour program during which the Iranian president spoke and answered questions at the Roone Arledge Auditorium in Morningside Heights by calling Mr. Ahmadinejad a "petty and cruel dictator." He chastised the Iranian for calling for the destruction of Israel, funding terrorism, persecuting scholars, women, and homosexuals, denying the Holocaust, and for fighting a proxy war against America within the borders of Iraq. Mr. Bollinger also tauntingly predicted that the Iranian would lack the "intellectual courage"
"It's odd to invite someone and then deal with the objections to inviting him by insulting him before he gets to talk," a professor of political science at Columbia, Richard Betts, said during an interview in his office yesterday. "He's having it both ways in a sense, honoring the principle of free speech by not choosing speakers on the basis of how nice they are, but being sharp to him before he speaks."
Mr. Betts said a more appropriate introduction would have been to make clear that an invitation to speak at Columbia did not qualify as approval of the content of the speech. He said the message should have been delivered as a "less in-your-face assault."
Students said they interpreted the severity of Mr. Bollinger's opening, in which he called Mr. Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust "brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated,"
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
What’s they saying? If you try to please everyone you wind up pleasing no one?
I imagine that if he’d done this to the President of the United States it would be a heroic act of speaking truth to power.
Worse. Didn’t you know that Bollinger is a Zionist puppet? /s
So the faculty and moonbat students of Columbia Univ don’t like dealing in truths.
Got it.
Agreed. They are just angry he insulted their guy.
Unfortunately I agree with the moonbats on this one.
He was stupid enough to invite him, but then directed personal comments and insults to him. Low class, in my opinion.
He could have said the EXACT SAME THING in his introduction, in the proper tone for an invited guest.
THIS: “Here is Ahmadinnerjacket... he has been called a petty tyrant and dictator, bla bla blah...”
Not: “Here you are at my university you petty tyrant you..”
This just about says it all, these lefties are more than willing to believe this sixth century baboon before they would believe Gen Petreaus. The evil acts of this regime is well documented both in Iraq and the rest of the world. Columbia University will be a long time recovering its prestige after this ridiculous showing.
One good probe deserves another.
There is a right to free speech...not a right to be heard.
Now THAT’s the left we all have come to know and hate.
This is just how “Liberals Are”. They kiss you and tell you how good you are (by inviting him) THEN they bend you over and the pull out the Cattle Prod. This is how everyone who is NOT a Liberal is treated. Even though Liberals Love Terrorism and are cheering for the defeat of America they have to “Seem” tough, when in actuality their just a bunch of organized Haters, Defamers, and Sellouts.
Oh!
So maybe Rep Lantos (D-CA) should not have gotten up and trash Gen Petreous before the General even opened his mouth, calling him a liar and a puppet.
Kinda works both ways, but the moonbats don’t understand that.
What I find dreadful is that it is possible that many of these hate America love Imanutjob freaks will end up working for the U.S. Government. Probably in the State Department, because after all, they’re graduates of an IVY LEAGUE SCHOOL: COLUMBIA. Oh my - pardon me while I swoon.
Stop being silly. Free speech means they get to say whatever they want and then you get to say whatever they think you should say.
Where you been?
ROTFLMAO!
Nice bed you made for yourself, Mr Bollinger.
So do I. I made that point yesterday and no other FRers agreed with me. Ahmadinejad may be our enemy, but he’s the invited guest of Columbia University. That should never have happened, but afterwards, Ahmadinehad should have been given the respect that a head of state gets. He may not deserve it, but it’s protocol. It’s not about him; it’s about us.
I have paid almost no attention to this story at all, but as of right now I’m thinking it will be a cold day in hell before I ever hire someone who attended that school for overgrown adolescents.
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