Paging whoever runs Columbia University's public relations department.
Hope you didn't have Broadway tickets, or something.
By Moe Lane Posted in Liberals — Comments (33) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Not that it matters if you do, because you just went on the clock cleaning this disaster up:
University Dean John Coatsworth, aging relic and bastion of liberal idiocy appeared on Fox News to defend the invite of a man who is supporting and participating in killing American servicemen and women.
"If Hitler were in the United States and he wanted a platform from which to speak he would have plenty of platforms to speak from in the United States. If he were willing to engage in a debate and a discussion, to be challenged by Columbia students and faculty, we would certainly invite him."
(Via Protein Wisdom)
Now, I don't blame you - a job's a job, man - so just pass along this observation to Mister Coatsworth, if you would?
Text after the fold.
Coatsworth, there are, as they say, two Americas. There is the America where Adolf Hitler is the man who soaked Europe in gasoline, then lit a match; where Adolf Hitler is the man who created an efficient bureaucratic machine designed to convert 11 million people to corpses; and where Adolf Hitler is the man who, to paraphrase Mark Rogers, once apparently competed with Josef Stalin to see who could murder more Russians. That's one America. The other America is the one where Adolf Hitler is the guy you use to show your disapproval of the Bush administration.
I can hear the complaint already: the nuance of your position was obscured. Your problem, Coatsworth, is that you have to live in our America. And in our America, which is a place not particularly interested in nuance when it comes to genocidal scum, we're also not particularly interested in having a dialogue with people like Adolf Hitler. We'd rather, say, tie him up with piano wire and deliver him to the Israeli Embassy. There might even be a big red bow involved. Put another way: we may be effectively stuck with letting Ahmenejad get to the UN and back without grabbing him for various and sundry war crimes against the United States, but that doesn't mean that we're enjoying the situation. And we certainly don't enjoy being lectured by the representative of an organization that values the presence of the representative of a regime that routinely murders homosexuals more than it values the presence of the United States Armed Forces. Put more simply: we recognize your nuance. We simply don't approve of it.
I suggest that you work out why that might possibly be. And if the sweating PR guy delivering this message looks like he wants to crush your trachea with his mind, well, he probably does: you've wrecked his entire weekend. Of course, if you cared about what people without 'proper' academic degrees thought you might not have invited the miserable little Holocaust-denying, gay-murdering, anti-Semitic freak in the first place.
Signed,
Moe Lane
Obvious Lackey of the neo-Zionists
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Paging whoever runs Columbia University's public relations department. 33 Comments (0 topical, 33 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
after all freedom of speech means those who have ideas similar to the faculty at Columbia get to talk.. He makes Cindy Sheehan look sane and articulate.
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"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm." -- James Madison
How many times do we need to out-do each other in finding the most blatant example of the dangerous left wing thinking(or not thinking/absence of judgement). A discussion of what we are going to do about it needs to be had more often.
Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you. Washington Elected Elite
wouldn't be that difficult to restore some sanity to if anyone had the will to do it. Despite all their high-flown notions about "academic freedom," free speech, and such, the instructors and professors at publicly funded institutions are in the main just like any other public employee unless they've been give special rights by statute. Statutes can be changed.
Free speech guarantees from the 1st Am. and its state constitution analogs apply only to individual speech. The speech of a public employee engaged in his/her job, in this case teaching, is not individual speech; it is government speech and the government as the power to regulate it. There's a pretty good line of, ironically, 9th Circuit case law on the government's right to regulate the speech of public employees (the seminal authority is a CA case involving LA DA Gil Garcetti, don't have the cite) decided over a 1st Am. claim by the employee.
The Ward Churchills of the World exist because state Boards of Regents and Legislatures allow them to. When was the last time anyone on our side of the political ditch paid the slightest attention to who was appointed to a Board of Regents? In most states the university system is essentially a fourth branch of government but its Board is usually appointed by the Governor and its budget must be appropriated by the Legislature. Let me control any entity's people and money, and that entity will damn well do what I tell it.
There'll be a great hue and cry, but in states where there is Republican control of the Governor's Office and/or the Legislature, all it would take is the desire to do it.
In Vino Veritas
Columbia is lost. The idea that Bollinger is somehow going to challenge Ahmadinejad is ludicrous. The little jerk is going to make speeches, not join debates.
This university is not only giving legitimacy to Ahmadinejad's killing of Americans, they are practically endorsing it, by virtue of their track record and the fact that he is an invited guest of the University.
This Coatsworth has, through his statement, agreed in principle that it is not always a violation of the moral or virtue of freedom of speech to prevent someone from speaking, by his admission they would not have invited Hitler after WWII began. To me that is proof that this is not a question of freedom of speech. It is a matter of the University disagreeing about who the enemy is.
As far as Columbia University is concerned, the Minuteman Project and the ROTC are the enemy, Ahmadinejad is not.
absentee
... George Lincoln Rockwell made the college circuit and exposed himself as a buffoon. I hope Ahmenejad at Columbia is televised.
Adjraghed won't be. He'll be treated like it was a Larry King interview.
____
CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
to Achdinnerjacket. Probably a greater percentage of the students and faculty at Columbia see America as the "Great Satan" than does the population of Iran.
In Vino Veritas
who are putting these students through that college are supportive of him?
In 2002, I had some JAG officers attend a job fair/open house at Columbia to discuss the legal career field in the military with college seniors. They were spit on, verbally and physically harassed. We left since campus security would not respond and we couldn't conduct interviews in that environment (note: there were students interested). We contacted faculty, parents as well as NYC legislators but received no response. Later, the parents sided with the college president - endorsing the abhorrent behavior.
This was less than one year after 9/11.
Of course 9/11 was our fault because we haven't coverted to the radical facist version of Islam yet.
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"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm." -- James Madison
I thought that the folks at Red State may find it interesting that the President of Columbia University, Dr. Lee Bollinger, was the President of the University of Michigan when the initial affirmative action suits were filed against the University (Grotter v. Bollinger / Gratz v. Bollinger). I served as a student member of another public Big Ten university's Board of Trustees, so I don't pretend that the President has absolute control over affirmative action and other related policies, but I do think it's interesting that this is the second time and second school he has presided over that has been a political lightning rod.
Ron Lewenberg of the Columbia Conservative Alumni Association:
On Monday, September 24, Columbia University will host Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In so doing, the university is extending not a courtesy, but continuing a policy of anti-Israeli and anti-American leftist nihilism under the guise of academic freedom. The Columbia Conservative Alumni Association supports true academic freedom and free speech. Academic Freedom entails having a true range of beliefs allowed, not just those of the center left, far left, and whoever else hates America and the West. Free Speech involves not only accepting the right of a disdainful speaker to come, but also for students and interested parties to peacefully voice their discontent. Given President Ahmadinejhad's statements calling for the destruction of both the US and Israel, Iran's proxy war against the US and our allies, Iran's support for Islamist terrorism, and Iran's continued nuclear program we question the wisdom and moral value of giving this man a forum at Columbia, not the right of President Bollinger to invite him.
Unfortunately, free speech and academic freedom are not so well enshrined at Columbia as absolute rules, but are often excuses for a leftist agenda. For the university, free speech consists of
- Attempting to hide the sources of funding for a professorship donors named for Edward Said, an intransigent opponent of peace with or the existence of Israel. The sources were later shown to be a questionable Saudi trust, and the government of the United Arab Emirates.
- Supporting professors who target Jewish or Zionist students and then covering up the matter with stacked investigatory committee and then lying to the press about the findings.
- Demanding that no one pay attention to the academic and factual failings of Nadia Abu El Haj's book, Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society, or even seeing if she can speak and read the prerequisite languages when deciding whether she should receive tenure.
- Having fewer than 20 open conservative, libertarian or Republican professors despite having a faculty of over 3,000.
This is no surprise given, university president and self-proclaimed "First Amendment Scholar", Lee Bollinger's record or enforcing an unconstitutional leftist speech code as dean of the University of Michigan Law School.
The current administration at Columbia has no problem inviting President Ahmadinejad, who has called for the destruction of the US and one of our allies, whose special forces work with Islamist radicals in Iraq to kill Americans, and whose personal role in the suicide bombing of a Marine's Barracks in Beirut in 1983, which killed 243 Americans, is still an open question. However, this same administration ignored the vote of a majority of Columbia students to recognize the ROTC at Columbia. Evidently the university administration and trustees believe that the special academic and even physical training of future US military officers has no merit, but giving a stage to a man who sees to the death of American soldiers is laudatory if the proper questions are asked.
If President Bollinger truly believes in "academic freedom as a central value to our society" perhaps he can start by bringing in conservative speakers and looking for a politically diverse faculty, rather than just liberals, leftists, and now Islamists who wish to destroy America. A good place to start would be to invite Jim Gilchrist to come speak. Last October, Jim Gilchrest and other speakers from the Minutemen Project were effectively silenced, when Columbia security, despite being well provided for, failed to take simple precautions to stop leftists from storming the stage. This last week, the Columbia Political Union invited Jim Gilchrest to return, only to cancel the appearance the next day. President Bollinger should step in soon not only to rectify past wrongs, but also to show that those who love America also have a place at Columbia. Otherwise academic freedom and free speech are merely pretenses, no less transparent than claims of a peaceful nuclear program by Iran.
Ron Lewenberg
Columbia Conservative Alumni Association
we may be effectively stuck with letting Ahmenejad get to the UN and back without grabbing him for various and sundry war crimes against the United States, but that doesn't mean that we're enjoying the situation.
Okay, so we need to get him to and from the UN without interference for diplomatic reasons. Does that mean we need to get him to and from Columbia University without interference?
Why yes, I am an evil bastard, but that murderous demagogue wouldn't get out of the country without answering for his crimes against humanity if I were in charge.
Probably just as well that I'm not President, either.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
Columbia president is really delivering a harsh statement before Ahmadinejad. I predict Ahmadinejad will smile and answer his questions by twisting it back on the US, chewing up the president of columbia like he did w/ Anderson Cooper and other journalists last time. The guy is good at disarming and squirming out of these situations to get his PR points in.
They should have had Newt Gingrich show up and debate Ahmadinejad.
They just introduced Ahmadinejad. And people clapped. It starts out bad.
Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you. Washington Elected Elite
Yeah, he was quite harsh indeed. Too bad it's meaningless. The only thing that will play back in the mideast will be how Ahmadinejad stood up for Iran in the US.
absentee
Ahmadinejad first comment was wondering why the President of Columbia insulted him during his opening comments and should not do that when inviting a speaker to Columbia. Ahma said they should let faculty and students make up their own mind.
People yelled and cheered and clapped.
Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you. Washington Elected Elite
A'jad is responding to criticisms. He says he still teaches at university, he is an academic.
He says he raised two questions and got insults.
"Palestine is an old wound" - these people are being killed for 60 years - blah blah blah.
He says he has raised two questions - "I am awaiting logical answers instead of insults."
1. "If holocaust really happened why don't we have good research about it. Researchers who question it are put in prison in Europe."
2. "If it is a reality should the Palestinian people continue to pay the price for the Holocaust. They had no role in WWII."
Again he asserts Iran's right to nuclear technology. Of course we let them inspect.
"We are a peaceful loving nation. We love all nations."
Applause and boos.
I hope our "free speech" IDIOTS learn a lesson today. Ahma is trashing this forum and using it as his own platform. Just like he has done numerous times before. Will these idiot academics/media people ever wake up to reality?
Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you. Washington Elected Elite
Ahma has now got the moderator going in circles talking about proof of holocaust. It reminds me of the discussion about what the real meaning of "is" is.
Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you. Washington Elected Elite
A'jad refuses to answer questions directly. His style is obfuscation, lies, challenging the question and deflection of the issue. What is most disconcerting is that when he challenges the question he gets applause from the audience. I guess the mantra of challenging authority trumps rational thinking.
He gets applause when he criticizes the U.S.
A'jad certainly knows how to get a sympathetic audience. He wouldn't do so good at Hillsdale College now would he.
He just denied they have homosexuals in Iran and got booed. Oh, so now we can boo him. How pathetic.
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
Stupid moderator asks A'jad what he would say at ground zero. This is such a pandering question - allowing him to insult the memory of 9/11. He wanted to show "respect".
"9/11 was a huge event that led to war in Afghanistan..."
He wants to examine the root causes. Find out who was really involved.
He is a 9/11 truther and has suggested it was an inside job, but didn't say that today, except to hint that we need to still get to the root of it.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
Is Iran prepared to open full discussions with the U.S.?
Now he equates Israel - the Zionist regime- with the apartheid regime in South Africa. Iran willing to talk with all others. World doesn't work as it is being run today. He wants to debate Bush. So truth is revealed.
Now he is airing his long list of complaints about how badly Iran has been treated and how unjust it all is.
He thanks audience. He invites Columbia faculty and students to come and visit Iran. Visit any University you want. We will respect you 100%.
What a complete snow job. I hope the post talk discussion airs it out completely how much he lies.
I predict a major discussion by the leftnuts will be whether or not you should have a negative introduction to a world leader like the President of Columbia did right before Ahmadinejad spoke.
Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you. Washington Elected Elite
Within in a month he would have run down at least half a dozen sleeper cells.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
Bolton says Bollinger shows lack of judgment in allowing A'jad.
Bolton says this will hurt the U.S. in the long run. A'jad doesn't value the truth. A mistake to give him a forum like this - it will be seen to give him more legitimacy.
So much of the rhetoric about free speech has been such nonsense. The first amendment doesn't guarantee the right to a forum. It restricts Congress from making laws restricting my right to free speech. It doesn't guarantee my right to public forums to speak. It certainly doesn't give A'jad the right to speak at Columbia. He is on the internet and Iranian media all the time.
The students don't get it. They are naive enough to believe that A'jad will engage in rational discussion and debate.
Hamid Dabashi, Prof. of Iranian studies at Columbia criticizes Bollinger for his harsh questions. He says A'jad is head of state and represents all Iranian people and is now insulted and this is not good.
He goes on, however, to say they should not have given A'jad a forum in the first place. And he says A'jad is speaking ridiculous things. He says A'jad has no place to deny or question the facts of the Holocaust. No amount of solidarity with Palestinians justifies this atrocity.
He says A'jad's comments on women are cultural, but in practice there is a gender apartheid against women in Iran - they are jailed and suppressed for speaking out.
He is upset that bringing A'jad to Columbia has turned it into a war zone of dispute and instead of listening to A'jad and people like him and A'jad needs to be sat down and talked to. He has too many forums already.
Now prof. has to undo this nonsense in his class. I would like to be there for the next few days to see how his students think.
Probably not.
How about Ann Coulture, Newt Gingrich?
The lock-step-left is so reflexively willing to embrace the enemies of the US I don't think THEY even know why they do it. There is no rational why they would have the leader of a country that has executed 5,000 gay people since 1979, executes women for adultery and uses children to clear mine fields and yet refuse to have ROTC on campus.
Soldiers' Angels