Columbia University's Lee Bollinger's Bollixed Efforts
It appeared to many that Mr. Bollinger's Columbia was exercising one standard for his country's own military and quite another for the Holocaust-fudging, terror-sponsoring dictator of Iran.
And things didn't look any rosier for Mr. Bollinger after he attempted to triangulate by introducing the Iranian President to his students as a "petty and cruel dictator," "simply ridiculous" and "either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated."
The conventional wisdom is that Mr. Bollinger was trying to placate angry Columbia alumni by lambasting Mr. Ahmadinejad after rolling out the red carpet for him. Either cancelling the visit or resigning his post would have been an honourable course; unarguable though his criticisms of Mr. Ahmadinejad were, one could not help agreeing with the Iranian President when he complained that the introduction was not only an insult to him, but to the students and other attendees.
The National Post Editorial Board
9/26/07
And things didn't look any rosier for Mr. Bollinger after he attempted to triangulate by introducing the Iranian President to his students as a "petty and cruel dictator," "simply ridiculous" and "either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated."
The conventional wisdom is that Mr. Bollinger was trying to placate angry Columbia alumni by lambasting Mr. Ahmadinejad after rolling out the red carpet for him. Either cancelling the visit or resigning his post would have been an honourable course; unarguable though his criticisms of Mr. Ahmadinejad were, one could not help agreeing with the Iranian President when he complained that the introduction was not only an insult to him, but to the students and other attendees.
The National Post Editorial Board
9/26/07
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