OK, we just manage to get comfortable with getting our tongues around the name Osama bin Laden, and suddenly to be able to talk intelligently about world affairs, we have to learn to say “Mahmoud Ahmadinejad” (or various other spellings, like “Amadinejhad”). The always opinionated, sometimes dangerously scarey Ahmadinejad, President of Iran, just finished his hurried, but highly unappreciated visit to the United States, culminating with a protested appearance at Columbia University.
The university committee that invited him to speak felt that everyone has a right to be heard and debated, no matter how far off the mark his or her view of the world seems to be– certainly a noble aim for a university, but they didn’t exactly roll out the red carpet when Columbia President Lee Bollinger introduced the guest speaker by calling him every name in the book, including “astonishingly uneducated” and a “petty, cruel dictator”.