Interestingly enough, the day that Columbia University announced it was hosting the world's most famous hypocrite and Holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, I received my seventeen-thousandth solicitation of the year urging me to give to the Columbia College Fund. I, myself, am a formerly proud member of the Columbia College Class of 1994, and am suddenly several thousand dollars richer than I would have been had the mailing arrived a few days earlier.
In fact, I'm not alone. At dinner last night, one of my closest friends told me she had instructed her trust attorney to amend her will, which was documented to leave a considerable sum to Columbia upon her passing -- no longer. And I'm afraid for my alma mater's sake that these will be far from original stories as the future unfolds.
Oh, by the way, I completely understand WHY President Lee Bollinger invited one of the key architects of the Iran Hostage Crisis circa 1979, no doubt Tarbiat Modarres University's most notorious student. (See the phenomenal book, Guest of the Ayatollah by Mark Bowden). The attention drawn to the school is unparalleled, and President Lee Bollinger can promote himself as the guardian of constitutionally guaranteed free speech, holding aloft ideals with outstretched arms echoing the statue of alma mater, her outstretched arms gracing the top of Low Library's iconic steps at mid-campus. This, however, is part in parcel of a long pattern of welcoming irascibles to campus. Just last week, the school canceled an invite a campus group had extended to the controversial anti-immigrant group, The Minute Men, due in much part of overwhelming student outrage. And it welcomed Louis Farrakhan and his band of merry men to speak back in the dark ages when I was a student there. But this time, even with outcry from students, parents, the mayor of the city, even the president of the United States, Bollinger continued on with his own agenda, and his actions seem flat-out reprehensible.
I also don't understand, as an alumna and a journalist, the point of inviting such a controversial subject to a wildly controversial interview, and then lighting into him with a vitriolic opening statement, denouncing his government, his governing style, his very person. How in Andrew Hamilton's name are we to glean honest, thoughtful, introspective answers from a man known for dodging the simplest of questions, if the introduction goes beyond taunting to downright disrespectful. The New York Times' Maureen Dowd today called the opening oratory, "the meanest introduction in the history of introductions." Boy, THAT'S going to really make him open up. Goodbye Dr. Phil, Hello Dr. Bollinger.
At least when he was done stealing the stage for himself, Bollinger asked more relevant questions than those selected for the edited broadcast interview Scott Pelley presided over on 60 Minutes this past Sunday.
PELLEY: What trait do you admire in President Bush?
AHMADINEJAD: Again, I have a very frank tone. I think that President Bush needs to correct his ways.
PELLEY: What do you admire about him?
AHMADEINEJAD: He should respect the American people.
PELLEY: Is there anything? Any trait?
AHMADINEJAD: As an American citizen, tell me what trait do you admire?
PELLEY: Well, Mr. Bush is, without question, a very religious man, for example, as you are. I wonder if there's anything that you've seen in President Bush that you admire.
AHMADEINEJAD: Well, is Mr. Bush a religious man?
PELLEY: Very much so. As you are.
Are you kidding me? What kind of tree would you be would have been a more probing question. What a waste of a few precious minutes of broadcast time. Perhaps one on Israel or the Holocaust? I felt like I was watching a hostile episode of The View.
But I digress. As with most things in life, this comes back to money, and in this case, a lack there of it. I am more than curious to see what Ahmadinejadapalooza will do to Columbia's fundraising goals for this year, and for the foreseeable future. I feel for the hundreds of students who depend on alumni contributions to pay their own tuitions. I am concerned about fundraising to appoint the world's top academics, to continue to make Columbia one of the most prestigious universities in the world. But, I am afraid that Bollinger put his money where his mouth was, and pretty soon, he'll be going hungry.