Rosa Brooks had a great take on the Bollinger/Ahmadenijad face off a few days ago.
« Tactical Voting | Main | A Footnote »
A Bit Late, But
30 Sep 2007 01:43 pm
Comments (10)
The "president" is missing in the post above.
That was fantastic. She is my idol. The end.
Well, we can't forget that we did once have our President get the riot act read to his face -- by one Stephen Colbert, who made himself in one speech one of the heroes in the history of American political satire spoken to power.
Bollinger is a self-important buffoon (affirmative action for everyone but university presidents). Ahmadinejad deserves the strongest challenge, but Bollinger proved himself the wrong person to mount that challenge.
I don't know...I guess I still believe in showing some politeness and hospitality towards guests. Having your "host" introduce you like Bolinger did is just embarrassing and rude. And if the person is really so bad that they must be denounced to their face, maybe you shouldn't give them a platform in the first place.
I followed links from Tom Tomorrow to the description how Bollinger greeted a Muslim military dictator who supported terrorist attacks in one neighboring country, and Taliban as well, and whose country made nukes and sold the technology to North Korea (well, that was a barter), Libia and Iran.
The military of which he is chief commander is also implicated in some serious heroin trafficing. A guess: was Pres. Bollinger rude, or ingratiatingly polite?
By the way, Bollinger is not a self-important buffoon, but a man with a keen sense of duty. The first and formost duty of a college president is fundrasing. It seems that 90% of money bags hate Iran, or perhaps 30% hate and 75% does not care. Something like that. While only few money bags of Indian descent would care about Pakistan.
One thing that bothered my in Bollinger's introduction was a slavish repetition of propaganda points. Unlike Musharraf, Ahmedinejad is not a dictator etc.
One last comment. I bet that Bollinger would be also ingratiatingly polite introducing a President of a country in which NON-denying Holocaust is a CRIME. But with Armenian Holocaust, it's OK. Our own State Department has NO POSITION on the issue.
Consistency is a hobgoblin of small minds.
I don't get it - bollinger is a "crass American bully" but I wish we had more like him...?
Yeah, I wish Bush would take some real questions/accusations publicly - and I really wish someone in Iran could confront Ahmadinejhad in such a fasion - but I think she's trying to have it both ways.
Comments closed October 14, 2007.
| 
Heads in the Sand
It's good to know that to be a university you must be both ruthless AND craven. Someone like the William H. Macy character in Fargo.
Posted by Jeffrey Davis | September 30, 2007 1:46 PM