Original: MR reader PS was at Columbia during Ahmadinejad’s speech, and wrote in to upbraid us about this post. We know this guy personally and have zero doubt about his credibility:
On the audience response front, there were two crowds–the one that got inside, and the larger one outside. I was outside, tho could hear the same inside crowd responses that you did, via the broadcast. They were quite different, w/ the inside crowd tilting much more toward M.A. than the outside. I figured that the inside group had a relatively large group from the Iranian Students Association, though I can’t be sure of that. The outside group, tho, which I believe was more representative of the Columbia student body as a whole (one had to get tickets for the inside event, which went very quickly, and thus toward those ready to pounce at the opportunity, and probably organized). Of the four applause moments you mention [(a) talked about how Islamic hospitality would not have permitted someone to upbraid a speaker, (b) made references to why Israel is illegitimate and needs to have more "debate", (c) defended Iran's nuclear program, (d) called on them to visit Iran -- ed ], only the first two registered at all with the outside crowd, and in very sparse numbers. So it’s on that basis that I suggest the headline on your blog wasn’t accurate, and was based more on ideological predisposition (pre-judgment) than evidence about the facts of (this) case. The vast majority of the crowd seemed there to listen, skeptical (at best) of M.A., and far more moved by Bollinger’s words than anything M.A. said.
The beginning of the email jives with specific reports about what was going on inside the auditorium: the applauding Columbia students were from a well organized Columbia Muslim student group and there were only 20 or 30 of them.
That doesn’t get the Bollinger off the hook for inviting the genocidal lunatic. Ahmadinejad pulled off an enormous propaganda coup domestically in Iran – predictably pulls off an enormous propaganda coup.
Even if he hadn’t, this criticism of Bollinger’s introduction seems about right. You don’t invite someone just to publicly attack them. No matter how good it feels – and wow it must have felt good – It’s just not done. If someone is so beneath contempt that they are unworthy of decorum, that’s probably a very good reason not to give them a platform. Ditto for accepting an invitation to speak violating decorum from the other direction. It was wrong when Colbert did it and it was wrong – albeit infinitely more justified – when Bollinger did it.
Update: Another reader asked to see some of the background of this discussion. Here’s the part of a previous email we sent to PS that led him to describe just how few people were actually applauding for Ahmadinejad:
That one part about homosexuals where he got booed was obviously a rhetorical slip-up. But the question is how there could be so much sympathy for him that he could recover and still win over even part of the crowd and get applause by the end. I can say with some certainty that if Jerry Falwell had been up there he would have been met either with stony silence or open derision. Of course this is empirically untestable, since no one like Falwell would ever be offered the podium at an august institution like Columbia. Ditto for Larry Summers
References:
* Of Course The Columbia Students Applauded For Ahmadinejad [MR]
* An Email from a Columbia Student [LGF]
* Video: Columbia Students Applaud Ahmadinejad’s Reply to Bollinger [LGF]
* Ahmadinejad lauded in Iran for "Lion’s Den" visit [WaPo]
* Re: Columbia [John Podhoretz] [NRO]
Previously:
* Israel And AIPAC: We’ll Respond To Walt And Mearsheimer When Their Vicious Anti-Semitism Gets Sophisticated Or Relevant (Plus: MR Is Suspicious About Leftist Pro-Mearsheimer Enthusiasm)
* We’re Calling Bullshit On UC Irvine’s "Evil Conservatives Made Us Fire Chemerinsky" Claims
* Brown University Outrage: Anti-Israel Academics Organize Conference To Attack Pro-Israel Critics, Shut Out Pro-Israel Speakers and Students
