It's true?

[travelinman]

[Lew]

I think the thing that irritated me the most about all of that was the commentary by Columbia President Lee Bollinger.

I am a huge proponent of free speech. I had no problem with Ahmadinejad coming over here, I had no problem with him speaking at Columbia (and I wouldn't have had any objection to him visiting Ground Zero, absent some kind of security risk).

If I were President of a university, I probably wouldn't have invited him to speak, but if that's what Columbia wants to do, so be it.

OK if you're going to invite him to speak, then you let him speak. And then if he wants to ask questions afterwards, fine, if he scurries out of there, again, fine.

And I realize a lot of people came down on Columbia, but again, I would in the minority.

Until, of course, they start the festivities off with Bollinger ranting and raving. To me, that was the epitome of wishy-washiness. He knew it would be controversial inviting Ahmadinejad; well, give the man the chance to speak. Then you can always get up afterwards and hem and haw and do whatever.

Look I'm not pimping Iran, not by any means. But the man is their Head of State, there are certain privileges that come with that. The middle east and the west have always had divergent views on freedom; I believe ours is the superior way, but only when we actually practice what we preach.