Instead, Bollinger and Columbia University stepped into a black hole of shame, from which there is no escape.

What has the passage of a year wrought? 

Only a better understanding of just how misguided Bollinger, John H. Coatsworth (the SIPA Dean), Richard W. Bulliet (the professor who initiated the A-Jad invitation) and the entire Columbia University Board of Trustees were.

Columbia University was played to the max by Ahmadinejad, who basked in the credibility his appearance provided for his gay-bashing, women-stoning, anti-American, destroy-Israel agenda.  Bollinger and Columbia University have been accessories to every action of A-Jad since September 24, 2007.  And, Bollinger and Columbia University will go down in history as having been duped by one of the 21^st Century's most evil leaders.

What else has time revealed about the 2007 A-Jad speech at Columbia?  Like a politician who serves his or her entire career with distinction, and then is caught in a lurid scandal, Columbia’s biographers and obituary writers will forever associate the school with a man who openly calls for Holocaust II against the Jewish people and the State of Israel.

We strongly suspect that Columbia has paid a financial price, as well, for its embrace of A-Jad.  We know alumni donors who’ve cut or eliminated their contributions to the school in the wake of the September 24^th blasphemy. And really, there is no way to know which major domo donors who might have once considered a major gift to Columbia have reconsidered.

One year later A-Jad and his hate-filled regime are stronger and more menacing than ever.  As for Bollinger, Coatsworth, Bulliet and the other vermin who disgraced themselves and their university, we see no signs that they’ve managed to redeem their tarnished reputations even an iota.  

In Jewish tradition, one remembers those who have died each year on the anniversary of their deaths by saying a special Yizkor prayer and lighting a candle.  This September 24^th, many Columbia University alumni and friends of the school will be lighting a candle for Columbia University to commemorate the day its morality perished.

Which Olympic athlete, after all, is going to boycott this year's games rather than symbolically support the Chinese government and its oppression of Tibetans? 

Of course, no one of good conscience should attened the Beijing Olympics nor accept any honor from Columbia University.  Both China and Columbia have disgraced themselves.

Undoubtedly, however, that is exactly what the tyrants in China and the cowards at Columbia are counting on.  If Lee C. Bollinger thought he'd be shunned -- as he should be -- for allowing a genocidal, homophobic, women-stoning, American killing, holocaust denier an honored platform at Columbia, he never would have done it.

Instead, Bollinger will stand front and center at the 2008 Pulitzer Prize Awards dinner with the luminaries of the American news media and their credibility will rub off and him and reinforce his decision to invite Ahmadinejad.

Ahmadinejad, too, wins.  How horrible a tyrant could he be if all these great American journalists are willing to accept his Columbia Unversity host as worthy of sitting on the Pulitzer Board?

So who won this year's highest journalism honors?  Some folks at the Washington Post, several reporters at the New York Times, and Ahmadinejad-Bollinger.

We sure hope history will put all this in its proper perspective because our contemporaries haven't a clue.

New York, NY -- Lee Carroll Bollinger, the controversial president of Columbia University and a distinguished legal scholar, died yesterday afternoon of a massive coronary attack as he prepared to meet with the school's Board of Trustees.

Paramedics worked feverishly for more than one hour to resuscitate the 61-year-old educator, but he was pronounced dead on the scene before he could be transported to the nearby Columbia University Medical Center.

In a statement, William V. Campbell, chairman of the University's Board of Trustees, said that "all of us at Columbia have lost a great leader and friend in Lee." Campbell added that "although Lee's tenure here was enveloped in controversy and acrimony, the Board always supported him and felt he had his best interests at heart in all of the decisions he made."

Bollinger become president of Columbia in June 2002, after serving as president of the University of Michigan since 1996.

While the Santa Rosa, California native had been involved in various legal and policy controversies throughout his professional career -including standing at the center of two cases before the United States Supreme Court - Bollinger became a global figure only after he permitted Iranian Dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak on campus on September 24, 2007.

Ahmadinejad's speech, and Bollinger's biting introduction of him, made Bollinger the target of criticism from many quarters.  Jewish groups and others felt Bollinger should not have permitted Ahmadinejad to speak on campus, given the Iranian's record of gross human rights violations and Holocaust denial.

Others were outraged by Bollinger's introduction, which they said was unbecoming, given that Ahmadinejad was speaking at the express invitation and with the approval of Columbia and Bollinger.

While others at the University also took heat for the Ahmadinejad-Bollinger speech, as it came to be known, Bollinger alone bore the brunt of the blame.

Maynard G. Krebbs, a theologian and Oxford University scholar, said in a telephone interview from Bath, England that he believes history will judge Bollinger harshly. "Lee wanted it both ways. He wanted to show his academic tolerance for speech he didn't agree with and he wanted to damn that speech," Krebbs said. "He really either should have banned Ahmadinejad or he should have kept his introductory remarks civil."

At the time of his death, Bollinger was also facing heavy opposition from community groups over his plan to expand the campus onto a 17-acre development in adjoining Harlem, a move these groups contend will displace the culturally mixed, lower-income population that currently lives there and runs businesses there.

Richard W. Bulliet, a professor of history who also took heat as the liaison between the campus and Ahmadinejad, said in an interview that Bollinger was not deaf to the complaints of those who felt his actions were disrespectful to Jews, gays, women, African Americans and other minorities.

"Lee heard their cries and weighed their arguments," Bulliet said. "He just didn't want to let these self-interested groups interfere with his own highly-prized professional aspirations."

Bollinger is survived by his wife, Jean Magnano Bollinger, and two grown children. Details concerning his funeral and viewing have not yet been set.

p.s. The above account of Bollinger's passing is greatly exaggerated. In fact, it never happened. But we wanted Bollinger and his fans to get a taste of how his actual obituary is likely to read, since when the real one is printed, he won't be there to enjoy it. Happy Purim, Lee!

In recent days, both Mahmoud Abbas and Khaled Mashaal (photo) have likened Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip to the Nazi Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were systematically and deliberately slaughtered.The problem for Columbia and Bollinger, who welcome Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites to speak on campus (and to teach there whenever possible), is that the Palestinians are comparing what is going on now in the Gaza Strip to an event that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tells the world never even happened.

Which terrorists should Columbia and Bollinger support going forward? Which terrorists should next be honored with a platform at the university?

Let us break this down; starting with Ahmadinejad, who is not only an avowed Holocaust denier, he actually hosted a global conference in Iran that drew a crowd of anti-Semitic paranoids just like himself.

Ordinarily, what a whacked out leader of Iran who denies the Holocaust says or does would be of little interest to sane people.  But Bollinger and Columbia wanted their students to hear first hand from Ahmadinejad, so last September 24, they turned their campus over to the blood-drenched madman in the name of free speech and academic inquiry.

Ahmadinejad made no excuses for his Holocaust denials and used the event to blast western ideals, America, Zionists, and whoever else came to mind.  (Back at home, Ahmadinejad enjoys torturing his own people, especially gays and women who dare be accused of immodesty, whether or not the accusations are true.)

Well Columbia and Bollinger just love providing free speech platforms to those who hate America.  By contrast, the campus has run off military recruiters and other American patriots who had the chutzpah to love the United States or preach defense of its borders from illegal immigrants.

Now comes Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority (and himself a terrorist in diplomat’s clothing) who calls Israel’s response to daily bombardments of its civilian population “worse than the Holocaust.”

No one, not Abbas, not Ahmadinejad, not Bollinger and not Columbia seem to be bothered by the fact that the Palestinians in Gaza – which is no longer occupied – each day send rockets to kill innocent Jews across the border in Sedorot and Ashkelon.  Just imagine if everyday the residents of Tijuana were shooting rockets and killing folks in San Diego!

Killing and maiming Jews is okay.

But when those damn Jews fight back and some terrorists and Palestinian innocents shed blood, well, it is worse than the Holocaust. Much worse.

Khaled Mashaal, the leader of Hamas, who hides under a rock somewhere in Syria and slithers out periodically to proclaim the forthcoming demise of Israel, also describes Israel’s defense against his rockets “the real Holocaust.”

Moreover, Mashaal says that Israel exaggerates the Nazi Holocaust and uses it “to blackmail the world.”

And, pity, him, then there is Lee C. Bollinger. 

Bollinger desperately wants to do the right thing and wants to invite the right terrorists to campus.  He wants to make sure the truest of Holocaust deniers are given a platform at Columbia to insure the academic integrity of the campus.  But whom to believe:  Ahmadinejad the full out denier, or Mashaal and Abbas, who want to compare their misery to that of the Jews of Europe during World War II, but each of whom has a different version of how little the Jews actually suffered at the hands of the Nazis?

Let this be a lesson to all university administrators:  There is always another evil tyrant just around the corner begging to borrow some of your campus’s credibility to promote his sick views.  If you play favorites too soon, some of the best terrorists may be excluded from your future invitation rosters.
 
Choose your terrorists and genocidal maniacs wisely.  It's a lesson Lee Bollinger has learned the hard way.

Costumes are a traditional part of the festivities that surround the annual Jewish holiday of Purim.

Purim commemorates the reversal of fortune for the Jews of 6th Century Persia, who were facing extermination at the hands of the evil Haman, a trusted adviser to the king. Thanks to the intervention of Queen Esther and her cousin, Mordecai, the king protected the Jews and instead hung Haman on the gallows he, himself, had constructed to kill Jews.

Purim revelers can dress as Ahmadinejad (l) or Bollinger (r)

At modern Purim carnivals, it is customary for children and adults alike to dress up as Esther, Mordechai and other characters from the biblical story, including Haman.

This year, however, to mark the September 24, 2007 speech by Iranian Dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Columbia University, a group of Columbia alumni and concerned citizens - known as Bnai Haman - are planning an Ahmadinejad-themed Purim festival.

"Ahmadinejad and Haman have a lot in common in that both men plotted to exterminate all the Jews," says a spokeswoman for Bnai Haman, a not-for-profit group of volunteers. "And just as Haman found those in ancient Persia who would listen to his incitements, so too did Columbia University provide a platform for Ahmadinejad to espouse Israel's destruction to a global media audience."

At its 2008 Purim Ball, to be held the evening of March 20, 2008, revelers will have the opportunity to dress like the biblical Purim figures or to wear masks representing those who were most closely involved in the Ahmadinejad speech.

In addition to Ahmadinejad costumes, Bnai Haman said its members plan to dress as Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger, who introduced Ahmadinejad; Richard W. Bulliet, the Columbia University professor who first invited Ahmadinejad; and John H. Coatsworth, an acting Dean at the University who defended the Ahmadinejad speech, telling Fox News that he would have invited Hitler to speak on campus had the Nazi leader been available.

"Judaism often finds modern parallels to biblical stories," the Bnai Haman spokeswoman noted. "We believe that history will record the reign of Ahmadinejad on the same scale as that of Haman and others who have sworn to destroy the Jews over many, many centuries."

Bnai Haman works to remind the world of the lessons learned by the Ahmadinejad-Bollinger speech and to forewarn other universities and academics about the price to be paid for permitting dictators, terrorists and other villains to user their institutions as a platform for promoting hate speech.

The group maintains various informational websites, including www.september242007.com.

Mohammad Ali Jafari, head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, said on February 18th that Israel will soon be destroyed by Hezbollah, according to a report by Reuters.

"In the near future, we will witness the destruction of the cancerous existence of Israel by the powerful and competent hands of the Hezbollah combatants," Jafari was quoted as saying in a letter of condolences in the wake of the recent killing of Imad Moughniyah, a senior guerrilla commander.

As Reuters noted, Iran does not recognize Israel and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has often predicted the imminent demise of the Jewish state, drawing criticism from the West which fears Iran wants to make nuclear bombs that could threaten the region.

Nonetheless, Columbia University and its President, Lee C. Bollinger, provided a platform to Ahmadinejad last September 24, saying that students would learn from questioning the dictator first hand.

Moughniyah did not have the opportunity to speak at the Ivy League institution before his death in a car bombing last week.

If Jafari is correct, and Hezbollah is able to destroy Israel, it will give the students at Columbia many good topics to discuss in courses and no doubt provide many new terrorists available to speak at the school.

Free-speech advocate Imad Mughniyeh (covering the mouth of TWA pilot.)

“As Columbia made clear, students and faculty at democratic, free-speech schools can learn so much about the mind of terrorists by inviting them to speak on campus,” says Jed Christianson, a spokesperson for Bnai Haman.  “Mughniyeh's credentials in this regard were impeccable and with his untimely death, Columbia and its community are robbed of the opportunity to hear from this influential Middle East leader.”

Unlike Ahmadinejad, who has openly called for the destruction of Israel, Mughniyeh worked behind the scenes, quietly, to achieve much the same ends.  “Here we have two similar spirits using different methodologies to achieve their purposes,” Christianson said.  “How instructive it would have been for students to have the chance to compare these two anti-Zionist, anti-American leaders and their methodologies.”

Among topics Mughniyeh might have addressed was the July 1994 bombing of the Jewish community offices in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people.  Mughniyeh continued to be sought for his role in the attack until the day he died.

“We are sure students would have asked him to explain why he and Hizbullah chose to kill innocent Jews in Buenos Aires, if he and his clan are only opposed to Israel and Zionists,” Christianson said.  “Moreover, we would have welcome the introductory remarks that Columbia president Lee C. Bollinger no doubt would have made for Mughniyeh, putting him down before giving him a worldwide stage to express his views.”

Bnai Haman called upon the United Nations and especially its High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour,  to protect other terrorists from assassination before they’ve had their opportunity to address students in the U.S. generally, and at Columbia specifically. 

For more information, visit www.leebollinger-bnaihaman.com.