Columbia Gets Played Anyway

Amid the torrent of self-congratulation over Lee Bollinger's alleged "schooling" of the dinner-jacket dictator, the fact remains, Columbia University got played. For confirmation of this sorry fact look no further than the top story that was released in the mullah-controlled Iranian newspapers.

Despite entire US media objections, negative propagation and hue and cry in recent days over IRI President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s scheduled address at Colombia University, he gave his lecture and answered students questions here on Monday afternoon.

On second day of his entry in New York, and amid standing ovation of the audience that had attended the hall where the Iranian President was to give his lecture as of early hours of the day, Ahmadinejad said that Iran is not going to attack any country in the world.

Before President Ahamadinejad’s address, Colombia University Chancellor in a brief address told the audience that they would have the chance to hear Iran’s stands as the Iranian President would put them forth.

He said that the Iranians are a peace loving nation, they hate war, and all types of aggression. Referring to the technological achievements of the Iranian nation in the course of recent years, the president considered them as a sign for the Iranians’ resolute will for achieving sustainable development and rapid advancement.

The audience on repeated occasion applauded Ahmadinejad when he touched on international crises.

No mention of the Bollinger's lacerating introduction, no coverage of the enormous protests outside, and of course not a single word over the widespread public ridicule of A-jad's idiotic comments about homosexuality.

In situations like this, the question becomes simply who has the most to gain? Academic debate shouldn't be dismissed - there's a value in challenging one's own default perspective. But how much of that happened here? I'm looking for the interviews with anyone, on any side of the political debate who could say with honesty that they had their mental furniture rearranged, pro or con anything, by hearing this insipid little jackwit hump his talking points and avoid questions.

And the answer is simply that the dictator gained the most by consolidating his power, however incrementally, among the Islamo-nutcase fringe, in his country and elsewhere, places where there really is an actual media-government secret cabal that not merely distorts, but invents outright lies in the place of news. The most convincing lies, of course, have a faint shred of truth - and thanks to these enlightened minds at Columbia this brutal runt can claim to have possessed a microphone at a major American university.

And as for the "Bush is Worse" crowd: What a pathetic example of moral equivocation from a fringe that has been made blind to objective reality thanks to partisan hate goggles.

I'll tell you what. When roaming gangs of state-sanctioned fundamentalists are beating up women that are supposedly dressed provocatively and hanging homosexuals in the public square in our largest city - when that happens, then Bush is worse. When the Bill of Rights and free elections cease to exist, when the state actually controls the media instead of merely influences it like any other large entity, then Bush is worse. When (listen carefully) the government funds a group like Hamas that inspires a death-cult around slaughtering civilians, and doing so not accidentally but systematically, because they don't have the courage or the technical ability to hit military targets - then Bush is worse.

When those things happen, I will oppose the government myself, and join you in the protest march, or if necessary the underground revolutionary meeting. Meanwhile, let's be clear - it's not the people of Iran but the regime that does all of those things today, as a matter of policy. Their leadership denies them the ability to self-govern in the form of basic democracy, and beats them into submission when they resist. And thanks to willing dupes in the West, under the guise of open-mindedness, we are assisting them in propagating their revolting, anti-humanitarian rule.

Not helpful, Columbia.