Missed opportunity

The President of the University of Columbia is an embarrassment, and not because he invited Iranian President Ahmadinejad to speak to students. His introduction (of Ahmadinejad) was crude and cheap. Instead of attacking the Iranian President's ideas, he started by launching ad hominem (personal) attacks. It is intellectually dishonest, and a sign of great weakness.

The Iranian President has a host of absurd positions. He apparently believes there are no homosexuals in the entire country of Iran. He pursues nuclear weapons, restricts the freedoms of his own people, and warmongers. How easy would it have been to simply ask him straightforward questions and allow Ahmadinejad to humiliate himself with his insane answers? Instead, the Iranian President was made to be the dignified and well-behaved one. What a missed opportunity.

It almost makes one envious, though. To see the President of Iran take unscripted questions from a hostile audience in an enemy country. The President of the United States won't even take unscripted questions from his own citizens.