[NYTr] Boorish US Welcome for Iran's President

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

[The last time the US authorities acted so crudely and undiplomatically
was when Rudy Giuliani was Mayor and Yassir Arafat attempted to visit
the UN. That was worse than last year's embarrassing rudeness to
Venezuela. This outrageous behavior probably even tops that. "Tough" ??
No, more like boorish. More like a gallery of drooling idiots at
Columbia University led by the school's chief yahoo, Columbia's
President Leo Bollinger. -NYTr]

AP via Info Clearing House - Sep 24, 2007
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18454.htm

Tough US welcome for Iran's Ahmadinejad

By NAHAL TOOSI
Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took the stage at
Columbia University on Monday to a blistering reception from the
president of the school, who said the hard-line leader behaved like "a
petty and cruel dictator."

Ahmadinejad smiled as Columbia President Lee Bollinger took him to task
over Iran's human-rights record and foreign policy, and Ahmadinejad's
statements denying the Holocaust and calling for the disappearance of
Israel.

"Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel
dictator," Bollinger said, to loud applause.

He said Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust might fool the illiterate
and ignorant.

"When you come to a place like this it makes you simply ridiculous,"
Bollinger said. "The truth is that the Holocaust is the most documented
event in human history."

Ahmadinejad rose, also to applause, and after a religious invocation,
said Bollinger's opening was: "an insult to information and the
knowledge of the audience here."

"There were insults and claims that were incorrect, regretfully,"
Ahmadinejad said, accusing Bollinger of falling under the influence of
the hostile U.S. press and politicians.

"I should not begin by being affected by this unfriendly treatment," he
said.

During a question and answer session with the audience, Ahmadinejad
appeared agitated. In response to one question, Ahmadinejad denied he
was questioning the existence of the Holocaust.

"Granted this happened, what does it have to do with the Palestian
people?" he said.

But then he said he was defending the rights of European scholars, an
apparent reference to a small number who have been prosecuted under
national laws for denying or minimizing the Holocaust.

"There's nothing known as absolute," he said.

During his prepared remarks, the Iranian president did not address
Bollinger's accusations directly, instead launching into a long
religious discursion laced with quotes with the Quran before turning to
criticism of the Bush administration and past American governments,
from warrantless wiretapping to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Bollinger was strongly criticized for inviting Ahmadinejad to Columbia,
and had promised tough questions in his introduction to Ahmadinejad's
talk. But the strident and personal nature of his attack on the
president of Iran was startling.

"You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated,"
Bollinger told Ahmadinejad about the leader's Holocaust denial. "Will
you cease this outrage?"

Ahmadinejad said he simply wanted more research on the Holocaust, which
he said was abused as a justification for Israeli mistreatment of the
Palestinians.

"Why is it that the Palestinian people are paying the price for an
event they had nothing to do with?" Ahmadinejad asked. He closed his
prepared remarks with a terse smile, to applause and boos, before
taking questions from the audience.

President Bush said Ahmadinejad's appearance at Columbia "speaks
volumes about really the greatness of America."

He told Fox News Channel that if Bollinger considers Ahmadinejad's
visit an educational experience for Columbia students, "I guess it's OK
with me."

Thousands of people jammed two blocks of 47th Street across from the
United Nations to protest Ahmadinejad's visit to New York. Organizers
claimed a turnout of tens of thousands. Police did not immediately have
a crowd estimate.

The speakers, most of them politicians and officials from Jewish
organizations, proclaimed their support for Israel and criticized the
Iranian leader for his remarks questioning the Holocaust.

"We're here today to send a message that there is never a reason to
give a hatemonger an open stage," New York City Council Speaker
Christine Quinn said.

Protesters also assembled at Columbia. Dozens stood near the lecture
hall where Ahmadinejad was scheduled to speak, linking arms and singing
traditional Jewish folk songs about peace and brotherhood, while nearby
a two-person band played "You Are My Sunshine."

Signs in the crowd displayed a range of messages, including one that
read "We refuse to choose between Islamic fundamentalism and American
imperialism."

[Associated Press writers Karen Matthews and Aaron Clark contributed to
this report.]