The Redhunter

This is win for Ahmadinejad in Iran and in Muslim countries, as they will only show him at his best. They won't show Bollinger's introduction. They'll also show the students applauding Ahmadinejad. The mere fact that he spoke at a major American university give him legitimacy and standing.

Further, this invite and his speaking at Columbia feeds into the fantasies of the jihadists. The Khumeinists believe that they can declare jihad and create a regional Imamate. They believe that they can pull the wool over our eyes as to their true intentions. This event today encourages that belief.

On the other side, some in Muslim countries will hear Bollinger's introduction (from one source or another), and this will be damaging. Also, more people in the United States will now realize what a dangerous man this guy is.

The real shame here is on Columbia University for inviting him in the first place. I don't buy their excuse that everyone should be given a forum. Dean Coatsworth even said that they would have invited Hitler if he had been willing to debate. This is absurd. There are some people so extreme we need not listen to them. Grand Wizards of the KKK are an example. Anyone who denies the holocaust and has repeatedly said that Israel should be wiped off the map is another.

Unfortunately, this is the same university that allowed Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minutemen, was literally chased off stage by leftist idiots in October 2006. According to his website, he was supposed to return this year but the deal was nixed. It's unclear why, but Gilchrist said that the Columbia Political Union succumbed "to pressure from anti-freedom-of-speech gangsters." It wouldn't surprise me.

While I'm sure Ahmadinejad had great security, I'm sure he had nothing to fear from any students at Columbia. Conservatives don't storm stages or disrupt speakers, and leftists will tolerate anyone who hates the U.S.

And anyone who wonders where the faculty of Columbia's sympathies lie need only consider that this is a university that has banned ROTC and military recruiters, yet has no problem inviting a man like Ahmadinejad.

Rather, I think the Editors of National Review have figured out why Columbia invited Ahmadinejad

Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia has nothing to do with freedom of speech. Rather, it is one more capitulation in series of victories for anti-Israel sentiment at the university. Columbia has long had problems with professors’ intimidating students who disagree with them about Israel’s right to exist, and its Middle East–studies department is a hotbed of anti-Israel hysteria. The sad reality is that there isn’t much daylight between Ahmadinejad’s positions on the legitimacy of the founding of Israel and those of Columbia professors Joseph Massad and Gil Anidjar.

I think they have it about right. Bollinger and other academics prattle about "free speech", but the experience of conservative speakers at universities over the past 30 years has put the lie to this. Recall also that these academics are the same ones who pushed onerous speech codes (most of which have fortunately been overturned by the courts).

In the end, sometime in the next year or so we'll have to face the Iranian quest for nuclear weapons and their sponsorship of terrorism. Hitler had no shortage of apologists in France and Britain in the mid-30s. After he took Czechoslovakia (and certainly after Poland) most people came around, though it was nearly too late. Let's hope it's not so close this time.