Uh Oh
Looks like Bollinger is in for the Larry Summers treatment. NY Sun:
A backlash against the president of Columbia University, Lee Bollinger, who on Monday delivered a harsh rebuke to President Ahmadinejad, is coming from faculty members and students who said he struck an “insulting tone” and that his remarks amounted to “schoolyard taunts.” The fierceness of Mr. Bollinger’s critique bought the Iranian some sympathy on campus that he didn’t deserve, the critics said, and amounted to a squandered opportunity to provide a lesson in diplomacy.
Here’s his real crime:
A professor of history, Eric Foner, said faculty members objected more to the content than the form of Mr. Bollinger’s remarks. “He accepts as true claims that are being made about Iran’s role in Iraq, which are being put forward by people whose credibility on weapons in the Middle East has not always been 100% reliable,” Mr. Foner said.
Rudeness, of course, not an issue, but failing to recognized that Bush lied, people died, unforgiveable.
Columbia’s campus was buzzing with discussion yesterday of Mr. Bollinger’s reception of the Iranian leader. Students at the university’s School of International and Public Affairs said they were planning to send a petition to Mr. Bollinger later this week telling him that his behavior was out of line.
That’s how it starts.
Larry Summers, now the ex-president of Harvard, was like Bollinger a breath of fresh air in the stifling air of academia. But he learned the hard way that daring to speak harsh truths on a university campus leads to nothing but trouble. Summer’s experience suggests that if Bollinger cares to save his job, he needs to come down from the heady heights of speaking unvarnished truths to a despot, avoid future indiscretions, and don sackcloth. Either that or, if he believes it, stand up for what he believes in.
The Pseudo-Feminist Show Trial of Larry Summers
Lifestyles of the Rich and Tenured
Embattled President Steps Down
Re Bollinger, don’t just take a bunch of leftie profs and students’ word for it. Gateway:
Columbia University President Lee Bollinger’s insult to Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad seriously lowered the status of the university, MP Kazem Jalali said here on Tuesday.
Oh, this is bad. Very very bad. Welcome Hot Air, etal. Come on in. Sometimes I feel like I’m spending my days in a state of Active Astonishment. Hey, exactly what is the Mission of A’jad? I mahdi known. Nothing funny about war with Iran. OK, maybe there is. But maybe we should try to span this great gulf. Persian Gulf, that is. See what’s happening on the other side. Check it out: Saudi girls go wild!
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:41 am on Wednesday, September 26, 2007
13 Responses to “Uh Oh”
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September 26th, 2007 at 10:21 am
I thought Larry Summers really got a raw deal.
And that in the politically correct “hothouse” atmosphere predominating on many (if not most) institutions of higher learning, it is hugely ironic that only certain kinds of speech are “free”.
Summers’ candid remarks might have inspired lively debate but, instead, precipitated his removal. Similar stories on university campuses seem to be becoming more common, as “those who know” flex their intimidating muscle (see the crowd at Stanford recently trying to bar Donald Rumsfeld)
I don’t put Bollinger’s faux pas in the same category as Summers’. Summers’ sin was to violate the canons of politically acceptable views. (aka THE GRAND SIN) Bollinger’s sin (IMO) was to poorly choose remarks, perhaps as a response to protest from many who fund his school.
I think it hugely unfortunate that Bollinger’s choice of diatribe actually raised sympathy in Iran for their President.
Since the key to real change in Iran is the Iranian people themselves, anything increasing sympathy for A’jad is a bad thing.
September 26th, 2007 at 11:08 am
Is Lee Bollinger receiving the “Larry Summers treatment” from Columbia?
Just read over at Jules Crittenden’s blog that Columbia president Lee Bollinger is taking criticism from some of Columbia’s faculty and students post-Ahmadinejad visit. Apparently, they believe that Bollinger’s opening remarks and qu…
September 26th, 2007 at 11:26 am
Wait, implied in Foner’s remark is that we should credulously accept Ahmedinejad’s words, but the professional, researched opinions and facts pulled by our foreign policy experts is automatically suspect? Mahdi dId say there are no homosexuals in Iran. Perhaps that’s because his country executes them ahen they find them, as happened recently.
September 26th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
[...] Jules Crittenden points out that there’s a growing backlash against Bollinger. Now, being a reasonable, intelligent human being with ethics and morals, you assume that this backlash is from other reasonable, intelligent human beings with morals. But you’d be wrong. [...]
September 26th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
“He accepts as true claims that are being made about Iran’s role in Iraq, which are being put forward by people whose credibility on weapons in the Middle East has not always been 100% reliable,”
Gee “Professor”, you mean people like the entire Clinton admin, Jon Cary, etc, etc.
Academics should not inspire the willing suspense of disbelief, should they?
September 26th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
V of the C: I don’t think that academics should inspire the willing suspense of disbelief, but that they ought to teach the rudiments of reason. What is telling here, where we are dealing with academics who live by the idea that all sides are equally valid, such inessentials as manners override any of the valid essentials. Regardless of what you think of the government (and I am no friend of government), what matters is the demonstrated evil of the government of Iran, demonstrated over three decades in both word and deed, makes no dent in the argument whatsoever when “Zionists and the Neocons” enter into the equation. Having a healthy skepticism about our government should not translate into advocacy for an avowed enemy.
At least speech is still free enough that John and Jane Doe can see for themselves the intellectual deterioration on evidence in our universities. These hallowed halls are losing the respect earned in better days by better people.
September 26th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Pretty sure I agree salty. I got to be an ROTC student at a great Berkeley wannabee back in the day, and it was all attempted indoc all the time, not from the Navy, but from the university. I particularly like your turn of phrase here:
“Having a healthy skepticism about our government should not translate into advocacy for an avowed enemy.”
Which is exactly what Suppressor Foner stands for, advocacy for an avowed enemy, actually any avowed enemy. .
September 26th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
I think Bollinger was in a catch 22 to begin with. The right bashed him for letting the hard radical left students storm the stage during a Minuteman speech, and now the left is bashing him for calling out Ahmadinejad for exactly what he is - a neo-Hitler, grinning madly, getting new buddies along the way, saying the world misunderstands him, etc.
Back many moons ago, I was a graduate student at University of No Holidays. I only lasted one semester (two C’s didn’t help - B’s were a minimum to pass). I regret not returning to school, but maybe not with the indoctrination that goes on in universities now. And under no circumstance should the United States ever fall hands to the academics.
September 26th, 2007 at 9:37 pm
No, (not that it matters 24 + hours later, we’re ready to moveon.org to the next débacle).
My thought is that I would bash the President of Columbia from beginning to end of this ridiculous sage.
But you’re certainly right about “the academics”.
September 26th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
“sage”
geez, sagA
Here’s the NEXT ridiculous saga
http://ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=275526219598836
September 26th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Bollinger didn’t even get around to mentioning that A’jad said the U.S. should be wiped from the face of the earth with Israel. You can imagine the cheers that would have got as well as the tortured rationalizations from faculty dotards the following day.
September 27th, 2007 at 2:25 am
If Bollinger was in a Catch-22 situation, it was one of his own making. That thug ought never to have been allowed at Columbia, or any other place in this country. It’s bad enough that treaties allow such people in, but to invite him anywhere else at all is inexcusable.
September 27th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
saltydog:
I wasn’t defending Bollinger, and my sincerest apologies if it was taken that way.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. Bollinger was damned if he did, damned if he didn’t. A’jad should have gotten a VIP tour of the nastier sections of New York, although to him it would probably be like Beverly Hills.