There's much to say after watching Columbia President Lee Bollinger and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad live on the podium at Columbia. However, for now, let it suffice that by the end of the forum I observed three things happened:
1) Bollinger came away looking far, far better and more patriotic than anyone, especially in the conservative blogosphere, could ever have fathomed. Saying Ahmadinejad "exhibited all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator," Bollinger put the full court press on Mahmoud about women, gays, Israel, the Holocaust and nuclear power. Bollinger asked some hard hitting questions, many of which never got answered, and made note of Mahmoud's lack of answers or evasive rhetoric.
On several occasions students/spectators booed and hissed, especially when Mahmoud said there were no homosexuals in Iran! (Yeah right, since all of them are dispatched by the noose.)
The Columbia president came away from this public spectacle Smelling. Like. A. Rose.
2) Ahmadinejad, on the other hand, came away for the worse, much worse, than he could have ever expected or we expected. We all thought Bollinger would play the appeasing sycophant and throw the dictator puff ball questions. Ahmadinejad definitely departed on the defensive, looking smaller than when he arrived. And there was no glowing white light eminating from his countenance this time.
The Iranian president came away Looking. And. Smelling. Like. A. Weasel.
3) Columbia University saved face big time with Jews, women, gays and 1st Amendment defenders and even conservative naysayers.
Columbia University came away still Seeing. Green. In. Its. Endowment. Coffers.
The shocka of the year!
So now let me say, I was the first to throw stones at Bollinger and Columbia and may have jumped the gun. It's probably true that Columbia should never have given the Iranian any forum in the US---and I personally don't think he should've been let in the US in the first place, or should be ever again---however, from what I saw, given the reality, the whole thing turned out much, much better than I could have ever imaged.
Columbia hit a homerun. It only remains to be seen if it was a homerun with all the bases loaded.
Bet if Ahmadinejad returns to the US next year, and gets invited back to Columbia or anywhere, he'll definitely think twice about accepting the invitation.
And that's as it should be. Meanwhile, let's not let him in again, and move the U.N. out of the USA.
More on the stunning event here.
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Joel Rosenberg has a completely new angle on Ahmadinejad's visit and speech here. Very interesting, if you like to know more about the Shiite end-times prophecies driving the Iranian dictator. Here.
10 comments:
Web, web, web. I know it's not easy to eat humble pie, so let me be the first to say that I appreciate your post.
Apparently Bollinger spent 14 minutes lambasting Mahmoud to his face. When's the last time any American has had the opportunity to do that? This guy did more to explain how the US feels about the Iranian leadership than anyone else has in decades. I guess America hating communist liberals come through occassionaly.
As for Iran having no gays, that's pretty common. Egypt doesn't have any either. Neither does Jordan, Syria or anywhere else in the middle east. Of course the guy I knew in Cairo (a friend of a friend) who used to show up at the coffee shop in his short shorts with his "partner" would probably argue differently... :)
And by the way, there's also no drug users or prostitutes either.
I hope we all are willing and able to re-evaluate our positions on things, especially events, as they unfold. This was indeed a suprise.
Web, don't do anything rash. You're might have to give up your membership card in the VRWC (Vast right wing conspiracy) if you start questioning and/or re-evaluating your positions.
But if you're interested, here's a good place to start. Apparently the Bush administration put out a paper today saying the only way to save social security is to raise taxes and cut benefits, and that privatization would not help solvency in the long run.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,297850,00.html
I'm afraid the principles of my conservatism which I espouse today, after decades of re-examining, are not going to disappear. Hank Paulson, whom I have met at several Nature Conservancy dinners, knows, as Bush does, these entitlement programs are unfixable and the longer we wait, the more dire the unfixableness is. They're all humoring each other up there now.
But that's another subject for another day. Paulson, btw, is a fiscal conservative, but a liberal in most other ways....
I didn't see anything in Hank Paulson's resume that would indicate he's a liberal. Do you say that because he believes in global warming? He's a strong supporter of the environment, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's liberal or conservative.
He's also an Eagle Scout. Both of our boys are Cub Scouts (one Tiger, one Webelos 1) and I'm the Tiger Den leader this year. It's a great program for boys; I hope mine make it all the way to Eagle!
What a great thing to be doing for your boys, Vienna. I hope they make it all the way to Eagle too.
Paulson is a New York......gentile, doesn't that make him automatically, de facto more liberal??
Hey now, I'm a New Yorker by way of upstate (between Rochester and Syracuse). It's plenty conservative up there - much more so than NYC and the surrounding areas. I went to my first political rally in 1984, when Ronald Reagan came to Rochester to speak - our high school band was picked to play at it. I remember it being completely packed and he got a really warm reception.
I come from a long line of proud NY Republicans. My dad's a local Republican politician, currently serving his second term as a Village Trustee. He's also been very active in John McCain's two presidential runs. He used to have a sticker on his Ford Explorer that read "Hillary: Not Now, Not Ever!!" Those were pretty popular in 2000 - they were black and yellow and really stood out. They probably outnumbered the Gore/Lieberman stickers by a factor of at least 20.
The problem as I see it for the Republicans next year is that people like my parents, who voted for GHW Bush in '88, Clinton in '92, Dole in '96 and twice for GW Bush, also voted for Hillary in '06. She's been a very good Senator for upstate, which tends to feel like the neglected step-child to downstate NYC. She's a strong supporter of Kodak, Xerox and the upstate dairy farmers. She also led the fight to keep open the Canandaigua VA hospital, which meant alot to my dad and our family as that's where my grandfather, a WWII vet, died in 1993.
If Hillary can actually get my parents and their friends to vote for her, the Republicans are in very, very big trouble. She came very close in 2006 to winning the county I grew up in - which is almost unfathomable. It would be like Hillary winning North Carolina or some southern state by 10% points - it's that far fetched.
you could be right....vienna
Well, it's not like she is doing something personally for them and them alone. Supporting local companies and farmers helps everyone in the area. I just think they're happy with the way she deals with issues in upstate NY, which has been economically depressed since the early 90s.
There is a high percentage of military retirees and veterans in upstate who depend on the care they get at Canandaigua VA; it's hard for me to imagine that as we're a country fighting two wars simultaneously we'd want to close down hospitals that serve them. I'm glad she fought the Bush Administration to keep it open.
My parents supported the candidates for President because they believed in the platforms they ran on. I hope Hillary isn't the nominee. After 20 years of Bush and Clinton, I'm ready for someone else to give it a try.
Well unless something wild happens, she will be the nominee and probably the next pres....presi...I can't even say it!
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