Shame on Him.

Lee Bollinger, the President of Columbia University, boldly portrayed himself as an educated fool and the U.S. in general as a nation of uncivilized, knuckle dragging, infidels. How else could we be viewed by the international community when the head of an acclaimed institute of higher learning spewed such hair raising insults about his invited guest, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, when introducing him to the student body. I'm not sure if Mr. Bollinger behaved this way because he believes what has been reported about Ahmadinejad or if he willfully participated in the distribution of misinformation. I do know the remarks revealed more about Bollingers' character than that of President Ahmedinejad.

I was foolish enough to believe the academic setting of Columbia University would induce a somewhat relaxed, less guarded conversation on current issues. Instead, it was a venue to bolster the lies and misconceptions about Iran's president and the Middle East in general. Denying the Holocaust ever happened and the threat to destroy Israel,"wiping it off of the map" are the two lies the media will not miss an opportunity to repeat whenever a variation of the phrase,"Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, the President of Iran," is spoken into a microphone. The slightest effort to fact check will show that what the media reports as the truth is undoubtedly false, except the part about Mr. Amedinejad being Iran's President,which by the way, is a position in Iran with very little power. The Ayatollah Khomeini tells Iran's President to jump and Mr. A. will ask,"how high?" In the U.S. our President is Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces in Iran the Ayatollah controls their Armed Forces. I think these are points worth driving home to the public every once in a while.

I planned on commenting on the reaction to the "dearth of gays" in Iran but it will have to wait until later, there was an article I wanted to link to but can't find it.