Quote of the Day
Posted on September 24th, 2007 in Uncategorized | 15 Comments »
âMr President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator.â
âColumbia president Lee Bollinger to Iranian president A-jad.
âMr President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator.â
âColumbia president Lee Bollinger to Iranian president A-jad.
Copyright © 2007 Shots in the Dark
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15 Responses
9/24/2007 4:09 pm
That was a display of Bollinger’s ego and fear of the media labeling him as a Iranian sympathizer.
9/24/2007 4:13 pm
Yeah, didn’t see a strong advocate for free speech today. It was an attack under the guise of “free speech”.
9/24/2007 5:18 pm
Jesus, you could hear Bollinger’s chest-thumping as far north as Massachusetts Hall.
9/24/2007 6:32 pm
It is interesting, though, how taking the free speech road on this question — as opposed to the “don’t give an insane dictator a platform” approach — puts Bollinger in a real bind. How do you reconcile letting him speak with the imperative that you respond in some way to the moral dilemma you have created by doing so? How do you not speak out against him? And yet, how do you reconcile speaking out against him with the fact that he’s there at your own invitation? If this were indeed Hitler, mid-Holocaust, what would you say to him? Was Bollinger just chest-thumping, or was he calling a spade a spade? And what would Borat say?
9/24/2007 6:34 pm
Borat would say that A-jad is “number four prostitute in all of Iran.”
9/24/2007 6:54 pm
I don’t think Bollinger should have taken it upon himself to make those comments at the BEGINNING of the event. And he could have done it without name calling. And he could have let the students ask the questions with him acting as moderator of some sort. Let them be the scapegoats. Instead he did this : “Please speak here. You’re evil! Now defend yourself. I bet you won’t.” The diplomacy here was non-existent with a highly manipulative invitation. No doubt it must have been satisfying to call him evil, etc. Bollinger must have felt like a hero. But he was verbally attacking a dangerous man. I personally feel embarrassed by Bollinger’s grandstanding and a little scared how the Iranian President is going to absorb this later. It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Or a son. Or until another attack on US soil. I went through that. It was a very bad day. I’d like to not go through it again. So maybe more diplomacy should be involved here.
eayny
9/24/2007 9:24 pm
Why was Steven C. Schwadron from the lobbying firm Sher & Blackwell at the event at Columbia today? He must have connections in high places to have obtained one of the much sought after tickets. Any client in his portfolio interested in Iran, oil or weaponry?
9/24/2007 10:56 pm
Bollinger’s introduction and comments were unexpected & painful to hear, especially listening to them with an ‘arabic ear’- I wonder if Ahmadinejad & his ilk will use this experience to bolster his anti-American rhetoric.
9/24/2007 11:03 pm
FYI: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/401EF371-16B9-4809-8BAD-786CB2C26DF1.htm
above is link to Al Jazeera’s coverage
9/25/2007 8:33 am
Something relatively minor really struck me: the black curtain and black podiums, on which the usual words or emblems appeared to have been blacked out (Example). There was no visual cue that this was happening at Columbia, a sharp contrast to the usual logo-festooned backdrops and podiums. I suspect that’s so the Columbia name isn’t linked to Ahmadinejad every time yesterday’s event is used as file photos or video.
9/25/2007 8:39 am
Some of you have lost your minds in the stacks of Widener. This miserable, ugly little man was publicly insulted, what a calamity…just when he was coming around on the US, right? Just when he was about to abandon his nuke program?
9/25/2007 9:21 am
I agree with 8:39, although I don’t happen to think A-jad is that intractable a threat in the first place.
Bollinger did fine. I have concerns about the promulgation of the meme that Iran is fighting the US in Iraq — I have seen no evidence of that, and several elements of the theory have been conclusively exploded (for example, the claim that penetrative IEDs could only have been made in Iran — they found a factory making them in Iraq). Iran has already won the Iraq War that the US waged and has very little need to be meddling.
Bollinger did fine. He seems to me a man more spinn’d against than spinning.
SE
9/25/2007 11:02 am
My sense of A-jad-and of course I’m an expert-is that he is Khamenei’s court jester or fool. For Bollinger to address the Supreme Leader of Iran in that manner would be foolish and dangerous, perhaps: but A-jad, well, that’s what he’s there for. The real Iranian leadership is careful is quite capable of distancing themselves from him when necessary (and it’s often happened), mainly because they never let themselves be drawn too close to him in the first place.
A-jad’s role is to provoke, then Khamenei measures how everyone reacts. Pretty good geo-political analysis, eh?
9/25/2007 11:53 am
Let me put this out there: If the location of the event was Harvard, and Drew Faust (or Larry Summers) were the one giving the opening remarks “introducing” Ahmadinejad, do you think they’d open with thoughtful and balanced words encouraging real dialogue and free inquiry, or would they launch into a self-serving diatribe in the vein of Morton Down Jr. or Bill O’Reilly?
I guess Bollinger is free to speak his mind, but there are far better ways to be provocative as a University leader, especially with respect to a story such as this.
Kudo’s to the University for hosting the event, and shame on Bollinger for his politicized effort at self-promotion.
9/25/2007 8:40 pm
Mr. Blogger, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and unusual snogger who’s too busy canoodling hot Manhattan tamales to feed the beast. Get with the program!