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"I absolutely was offended."





That's what my Iranian-American friend said about the reception Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad got at the hands of Lee Botinger, the president of Columbia University.


Bollinger called Ahmadinijad a "cruel and petty dictator"-which is almost certainly true, but in this context just looked like a capitulation to all the critics who made it plain they didn't think the Iranian leader should have been invited in the first place.


"You don't invite somebody and then insult him



right to his face," she said.

And she was right. It was just plain rude and I was embarrassed.
Look, Bollinger is obviously a big defender of freedom-of-expression or he wouldn't have invited Ahmadinejad in the first place. All he had to say was something like: "We honor our own beliefs by having you here, and in no way do we endorse yours."


Fair enough. But Bollinger's move was just a cheap shot at a man who came to talk in front of an audience he already knew was very unfriendly.

Not that the audience didn't have good reason. The man is a Holocaust denier, for Godsakes, and has said before he wants Israel wiped off the map. His anti-semitism and autocratic rule deserve no defense. But from where I sit, it is not about his values--its about ours.
Now let me be clear, my friend is no fan of the Iranian leader either. First of all she says he is far too homely to be leader of a country with so many good looking people, but mostly she says he is "crazy."
But apparently not as looney as he sounded to Americans when he appeared to say they don't have gay people in Iran. You see, my friend speaks Farsi, and she says the translator got it wrong. He didn't say Iran has no gay people.
She says what he was trying to convey is there is no gay 'culture' as we have here. No official recognition, no 'gay' rights, no openly gay people in congress...that sort of thing.
I was actually relieved to hear that. Ahmadinejad may be a kook by our standards. But a kook completely out of touch with reality would be immeasurably worse.