Ahmadinejad to speak at Columbia

[Brandon]

The students gained, the university gained, academic freedom gained. We had the opportunity to speak openly and challenge a particularly heinous world leader, and we didn't give him the velvet glove treatment or back down from basic liberal principles like conservative talking heads assumed we would. This wasn't a political move; Columbia University is not the United States government, so whether or not Ahmadinejad has juicy footage is beside the point.

And we can't say for certain whether this will affect change or not. He at least agreed to let Columbia students and faculty visit schools in Iran and engage students there. Might happen, might not.

The full program should be up on http://www.cutelevision.org/ later today.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

The audience also gave a big applause when he chastized the Dean for attacking him before he could speak.

Where are you guys seeing these other videos?

Again, I'm fine with him speaking (althoughthe discussion of all these "gains" is certainly a stretch). I'm not fine with members of the Columbia "peace" movement discouraging people from protesting for the sake of not appearing like war mongers.

A lot of demonstrators were imported to the scene, and many on the campus Left dismissed the idea of protesting.

"And we can't say for certain whether this will affect change or not. He at least agreed to let Columbia students and faculty visit schools in Iran and engage students there. Might happen, might not."

Well that's super. Just don't look at a dude the wrong way.