my letter to Dr. Bollinger

darouse54
by darouse54
25-Sep-2007
 

Hi Dr. Bollinger

I just wanted to thank you for inviting the president of Islamic Republic of Iran to your campus. With this gesture you showed that your University is open to all topics and discussion, some thing that is missing from 99% of other academic institution world wide.
As a person who grew up in an academic environment in Iran (my mother was a professor in Tehran), I see the problems that they have and how nothing is done to help professors and students and the only possible solution is to use a guidance of people in your caliber.
Reality is that people in Iran lack the modern information to built productive environments for others to grow in different fields, and that is not limited to just Universities but all learning institutes, including elementry schools and private programs.
You and your staff have been officially invited to Iran, by the president. I'm sure any positive reaction from you will cause many criticisms and may have a negative effect for you as the president of Columbia University. However this is a golden opportunity to create a healthy communication with a society that is isolated from rest of the world. Like most field sin Iran the academic field is hungry for improvement and upgrades and you can help them,so please consider the invitation.

Another thing, I understand why you would express your personal feelings to the Iranian president and I think it is your right to do so, I only hope that the outcome of it doesn't cause this golden opportunity to go to waste. At the end of the day we are all responsible for our actions and words.

Thank you for your time

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Majid

Khanum Hana!

by Majid on

Click on my name and send me an e-mail


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Majid is my master, I am his slave

by Khanum Hana7 (not verified) on

Majid....BEZAR MAN NOKARET BASHAM....
I am still in love with you


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TO; ardeshir keyvan

by YO (not verified) on

For your information I am not playing the patriotism card of the group you mentioned. If a person is patriotic it doesn't mean he belongs to a certain group. Why does everyone who opens his mouth have to belong to a group? I am not even a political person. I agreed with you that our current representative is not as dapper and sophisticated as Hoveida or Amoozgars were but that does not mean me going off dreaming to be from another country just because things are not as perfect as I want them to be.


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TO: Double-edged Dick

by YO (not verified) on

Yeah, whatever....!!!


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You guys are missing the

by darouse (not verified) on

You guys are missing the point. The reality is that for the very first time in 28 years there is a possibility to create a direct dialogue between Iran and US through academic world.
Who cares about the rest, let’s try to be positive for a change instead of focusing on negatives.


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Iranians better wake up soon...

by Double-edged Dick (not verified) on

I am a blue-blooded American from southern Alabama.
I know there are a few good Iranians out there and most of them have already become Americanized and assimilated well into the American culture.

But for the rest of the folks from Iran, they are useless and frankly consuming too much oxygen and polluting the earth by exhaling too much Co2.

For the sake of the world to live in peace and tranquility, America should make a one flat parking lot out of the Islamic Republic centers of power then take over the oil fields and build a permanent base in Iran until the entire society assimilate to the American way of life.

God Bless America


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to yo

by ardeshir keyvan (not verified) on

Attacking the regime in Iran is completely different from attacking Iran or Iranian heritage.
I won't trap myself in patriotism cards that this Anti Iranian regime is playing.
This regime is a shame on our history and I will do whatever I can to see it vanished.

By the way, I didn't understand that you agree with what?
When did I mention Hoveida or Amoozegar were not our country's rep.?
I meant vice versa.


Majid

DARYUSH!

by Majid on

Thanks for your very nice comment , please read mine again and think about it! At what point you thought that I'm "nokar-e Israel" ?

Was my comment for or against? THINK my friend! 

 


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American's view of Islamic Republic

by READ BEFORE YOU OPEN YOUR MOUTH (not verified) on

The American view is that the Islamic Republic is irredeemably expansionist, revolutionary in ideology and ambition, and that it will take any concession as a victory. This view says that none of the United States, Israel, Europe, or non-compliant Muslim states in the region will be safe from Iranian proxy terrorism or nuclear coercion unless and until the government of Iran changes not only its personnel, but its very character.

Rather than focusing so much attention on the president, the West needs to learn that in Iran, what matters is ideology - Islamic revolutionary ideology, according to politicians and political analysts here. Nearly 30 years after the shah fell in a popular rebellion, Iran's supreme leader also holds the title of "Guardian of the Revolution." Ahmadinejad's power stems not from his office per se, but from the refusal of his patron, Khamenei, and some hard-line leaders to move beyond Iran's revolutionary identity, which makes full relations with the West impossible.

There are plenty of conservatives and hard-liners who take a more pragmatic view, wanting to retain "revolutionary values" while integrating Iran with the world, at least economically. But they are not driving the agenda these days, and while that could change it will not be the president who makes the call.

"Iran has never been interested in reaching an accommodation with the United States," the political scientist said. "It cannot reach an accommodation as long as it retains the current structure."

There is another important factor that restricts Ahmadinejad's hand: While ideology defines the state, the revolution has allowed a particular class to grow wealthy and powerful.

When Ahmadinejad was elected, it appeared that hard-liners had a monopoly on all the levers of power. But today it is clear that Ahmadinejad is not a hard-liner, not in the traditional sense. His talk of economic justice and a redistribution of wealth, for example, ran into a wall of existing vested interests, including powerful clergy and military leaders...

//www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/23/asia/iran.5...


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We're on to you Islmaic Republic

by aaa (not verified) on

Ahmadinejad's agenda, though, differs from that of the traditional autocrat. His goal is not merely to hold power in Iran through sheer force, or even through a standard 20th-century personality cult:

His goal is to undermine the American and Western democracy rhetoric that poses an ideological threat to the Iranian regime.

Last winter, when he invited a host of dubious Holocaust-deniers to discuss the Holocaust in Tehran, he claimed that it was in order to provide shelter for the West's "dissidents" -- that is, for Western thinkers "who cannot express their views freely in Europe about the Holocaust."
This week, he declared that his visit to New York would help the American people, who have "suffered in diverse ways and have been deprived of access to accurate information." Thus the speech at Columbia: Here he is, the allegedly undemocratic Ahmadinejad, taking questions from students! At an American university! Look who's the real democrat now!

This sort of game is both irritating and dangerous, particularly when it is being played by a man whose regime locks up academics for the " crime" of organizing academic conferences and regularly arrests the Iranian equivalent of the students who listened to him speak yesterday. Iran is experiencing an unprecedented wave of political executions and death sentences -- more than 300 since January, according to the Boroumand Foundation -- and there is renewed pressure on the media.

In that atmosphere, it was deeply naive to imagine that the Iranian president would enter into a "vigorous debate" with students who were deploying their "powers of dialogue and reason," as Columbia University President Lee Bollinger stated before the event, or that he would answer the appropriately aggressive questions Bollinger put to him -- which of course he didn't. (To a question about persecution of gays, Ahmadinejad responded: "In Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country.") All things being equal, Columbia would have done better to ignore him, instead of feeding the media circus that serves his purposes. It's not as if he is deprived of a platform in this country: Only last week, he ducked and dodged his way through a long interview on "60 Minutes," and his pronouncements regularly appear in media of all kinds.
Nevertheless, it would have been wrong, once he'd been invited, to ban Ahmadinejad from speaking: To do so would have granted him far more significance than he deserves and played right into his I'm-the-real-democrat-here rhetoric.

Instead, the university should have demanded genuine reciprocity. If the president and dean of Columbia truly believed in an open exchange of ideas, they should have presented a debate between Ahmadinejad and an Iranian dissident or human rights activist -- someone from his own culture who could argue with him in his own language -- instead of allowing him to be filmed on a podium with important-looking Americans. Perhaps Columbia could even have insisted on an appropriate exchange: Ahmadinejad speaks in New York; Columbia sends a leading Western atheist -- Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens or, better still, Ayaan Hirsi Ali -- to Qom, the Shiite holy city, to debate the mullahs on their own ground.

I realize that isn't likely. But neither is it likely that this past week's free-speech-vs.-nasty-dictator debate, complete with sputtering New York politicians and puffed-up university professors, achieved much either. On the contrary, it focused attention in the wrong place.
Instead of debating freedom of speech in Iran, here we are once again talking about freedom of speech in America, a subject we know a lot more about. Which is exactly what Ahmadinejad wanted.

//www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic...


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Khafe Majid

by Daryush (not verified) on

Majid boro bache kuni susul, khastam javabet nadam vali goftam shayad nemiduni keh kos keshi..haalaa bedun. nokare esraeli mageh behet bar khord?


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Ahmadinejad's Real Agenda

by aaa (not verified) on

Behind the Iranian president's lies to Americans is a man positioning himself for power in the Middle East

Isn't it ironic? Some of the same people who opposed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Columbia University on Monday usually criticize political correctness that suppresses free speech. Everybody wants to censor something sometime.

Ahmadinejad knows. His regime censors people much of the time.

Like the protesters, I disagree with Ahmadinejad, but that's precisely why I want him to be heard. Nothing discredits his credibility more than the sound of his own baloney.

The headlines from his first big day in New York touted the "scorn" and "laughter" his remarks received. It is ironic that the promoters of liberal tolerance and political correctness, those who would be most likely to give Ahmadinejad a break, instead were probably the most put off by his politically incorrect hypocrisy -- if they weren't too preoccupied with laughing at him.

At Columbia, he declared among other whoppers that, "In Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country." Right. Never mind human rights groups' reports of executions in Iran of juveniles and others for having an "illegal sexual relationship." Perhaps Ahmadinejad means Iran is doing its best to exterminate its homosexuals, if they can't drive them all underground.

He sparked even more "Say what?" moments at the National Press Club where he took questions during a videoconference before his Columbia speech. Before Ahmadinejad spoke, the club's president, Jerry Zremski, Washington bureau chief of The Buffalo Evening News, already had a 2-inch-high stack of questions. Reporters and others didn't need a speech to help them think of questions for this newsmaker.

"We're not endorsing anything President Ahmadinejad has said or will say," Zremski said, "just as we didn't endorse what Fidel Castro and Nikita Khrushchev said when they spoke at the press club." Still, he told me the press club received some predictable hate mail referring to "liberals in the media" as "traitors of the worst kind." (Hey, people, he's the leader of Iran! He's news!)

"The freest women in the world are the women in Iran," Ahmadinejad said through his persistent grin to those attending the videoconference. Sure. Never mind the arrests and fines for women who fail to cover their hair or their bodies with non-clingy clothes.

And never mind those reports by human rights organizations of the beating and torture of women who organize in Iran against unequal justice. "Well, human rights groups say what they want," Iran's president said. "They say and we tell them that they're wrong."

He similarly scoffed at a 2007 Amnesty International report that finds journalists and bloggers are detained and sentenced to prison or flogging and at least 11 newspapers were closed by Iran's government. When two imprisoned journalists were named, he dismissed the information, saying he had never heard of them. "In our country, law prevails," he said. "Freedom is flowing at its highest level." Maybe Iranians at the highest level are free, but everyone else is not as lucky.

"Today, I feel all the weight of the modern civilized world yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for," Columbia University President Lee Bollinger said -- and that was in his introduction of Ahmadinejad at the school's World Leaders Forum!

Yet I think Ahmadinejad's casual lying through his grins demonstrated a contempt for the intelligence of his audience that surely delights every despot on the planet. And that, I believe, reveals his true agenda. In the wake of Saddam Hussein, Iran is jockeying to fill a big power vacuum in the Middle East. It is funding terrorist groups against Israel, training insurgents against American troops in Iraq and sewing up new alliances in Iraq's Shiite majority to build a new version of the old Persian Empire for the Internet Age.

As much as Ahmadinejad has us talking about free speech in the U.S., the more important story is in Iran. Iran's nuclear ambitions and its deadly mischief in international terrorist circles are urgent cause for our concern. But our quagmire in Iraq offers a warning as to why war should be our final option in dealing with that part of the world when all alternatives have failed. Speech is a valuable tool against tyrants. We need to take full advantage of it, especially when tyrants can use it to discredit themselves.

//www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-ope...


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Lost Opportunity

by Ahmad_DC (not verified) on

Unfortunately, Columbia University lost an opportunity to allow Ahmadinejad to speak and describe a different point of view of the power struggle in a region that is sitting on what the rest of the world is going to need in a growing aggressive manner for the next 50 years. This guy maybe the current man in charge of the persecution in Iran but he certainly did not begin the mistreatment of women, gays, political opposition, and journalist (that dates back to a long time before the Islamic revolution) and his departure from power will not bring an end to it. It was a complete waste of time to try to blame him for every single thing that is wrong with Iran. I would have preferred to hear about Iran’s strategic interest in the short term and the long term. Ask him to describe his vision for Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraq. What kind of an arrangement could Iran and the Saudies could come to bring Iraq back to some sort of stability? This pin the tail on the donkey game they played basically reduced the level of this exercise to an elementary school level. I understand how the pressure got to the CU president who was looking at the potential loss of millions in endowment donations. Ahmadinejad had been asking for a mud slinging debate with Bush at the UN. Well this was a perfect opportunity to goat the CU president into that debate and begin a tit for tat exchange of accusations of violations of human rights and decency. Bollinger would have had no choice but to engage after that condescending and self righteous opening. Ahmadinejad got sucker punched and showed that he was not a fighter with that whining about hospitality.


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Bravo Bollinger

by anti-idiots (not verified) on

The Islamic Republic is not a sovereign nation, period. It's client state of China, Russia, and the EU moftkhors.

It's governance doesn't represent and reinforce the true will of the people, who are the true source of all sovereignty, and the only legitimating base for any state.

In a country where the government cannot, yet, publicly account for the serial killings of the most prominent intellectuals and writers; in a country where thousands of political prisoners have vanished without any culpability (massacring dissidents); in a country where the government manifestly lacks any accountability for its methods and means when it comes to providing for its people (except when it comes to pursuing, terrorizing and killing dissidents); in a resourceful country that almost half of the population lives in poverty, in a country where the future generation of Iranians are going to be left destitude because of massive corruption and thievary of its ruling class, the government that has thus thoroughly proven its incompetence in governance has no right to demand respect. It has not earned it.


Majid

What is your name?

by Majid on

I think it reads " dar-useh "! right?

beacuse what you're doing in Farsi is called  dar usegi " begging"!

It fits! 


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To; ardeshir keyvan

by YO (not verified) on

OK I agree that our country's rep is not exactly Hoveida or Amoozegar.. But don't ever knock your country, man. There is a difference. Governments come and go, heritage is forever. And if you are jelous of Afghani's (not that there is anything wrong with them) I have to say this: Khalyegh harcheh layegh.


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Your letter is full of holes

by YO (not verified) on

You're letter is full of holes:

- First half looks like a job application.
- Why are you thanking Bollinger? For what?
- You wrote:"With this gesture you showed that your University is open to all topics and discussion, some thing that is missing from 99% of other academic institution world wide." - ...missing from 99% of other academic institutions?? where do you get your facts and why are you kissing Columbia's ass so much?
- Yeah Bollinger will definitely go to Iran...!!
- You wrote: I'm sure any positive reaction from you will cause many criticisms and may have a negative effect for you as the president of Columbia University. "However this is a golden opportunity to create a healthy communication with a society that is isolated from rest of the world"... I think it is a bit too late for a healthy communication opportunity after what Bollinger pulled off in there.

And most importantly: Who the HELL is Bollinger? His invitation to Ahmadinejad was purely a media stunt to belittle him. Why of all the academic's Bollinger has the golden opportunity to visit back? Who cares about him? You should have wrote that although we agree with what you said in your opening, it was not the right thing to do as far as protocol is concerned. And also that you certainly would not have gotten the same reception if it was the other way around. Very weak letter. You just made yourself sound like you have no dignity.


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I am jealouse of Afghanians!

by ardeshir keyvan (not verified) on

Mr. Bollinger said whatever me and a lot of Iranian liked to say to Ahmadinejad however it wasn't enough. Word by word of what it came from his mouth was a relief to me.
To Iranian regime and it's supporters freedom of speech means: We say whatever we like and you just listen and shut up.
No dudes! It does not work like that. I am so happy this dick face was there not that crafty and unscrupulous guy (Khatami), at least everybody in the world saw what kind dumb ass and animals are reigning Iran.
Ahmadinejad proved he is a pure idiot. We don't have any gay in Iran means something like: We don't have anybody in Iran 6 feet tall.

I like to say yesterday when I saw "Hamid Karzy" I got jeluse!
I wish I was from Afghanistan.
Shame on everybody was involved in the shitiest revolution in the world. See insteade of Hoveida or Jamshid Amoozegar Who is representing Iran in the UN.

Shame and shame.


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Very Rude of Columbia U President

by Keyvan Heidari (not verified) on

The way Bollinger, the president of Columbia University, laid into Ahmadinezhad, the president of a sovereign country who was invited to come onto the campus of Columbia to speak, was disgraceful, no matter what your position is on the issues. It's rude to call someone stupid to their face, especially if they are your guest, and doubly so if they happen to be the elected president of a country of 75 million! It was uncalled for in such a forum, and it was insulting to me as an Iranian-American. I guess it goes to show you how ignorant and rude some folks in this country are...


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Bollinger made a complete

by Anonymous3434343 (not verified) on

Bollinger made a complete ass of himself.Antarinejad handled every question in a calm and relaxed manner and looked like he was saying "GOORE BABAYE HAMATOON", in iran, many will be saying "what a reception! that's what americans are made of! fuck them all" Inam az mehmoon navazishun??
Bollinger acted unprofessional, juvenile, backwarded, jewish appeaser, shameful. It will back fire. Plus, who the hell wants to hear some Chancellor call ANATRInejad a dictator? no shit sherlock, say something we dont know!
They could have and should have GRILLED him without bullying him. I want to know why the head of the judiciary has no control over executions given in public by local judges? The constitution has banned stoning but many judges ignore it. Why are they not arrested? I want to know how long Ahmad Babeti and those like him will be jailed/threatened. I want to know what his plans are for the economy. I want to know how many political prisoners are in iran, can we have human rights watch do research on that? I want to know why we have to ration oil when we are one of the main exporters of oil! Who give a flying nut about what he things of homosexuality. We all know he is a backward religious nut. This was the most BIKHOD thing ever. It's like getting khomeini an interview and asking him about what kind of shampoo he uses or getting reza pahlavi on the phone and asking him about his favorite soccer player!!!!!WHAT A MISSED OPPORTUNITY
Ahmadinejad proved one more time that he is an astute politican. He smells, but he knows what he is going.


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My take on that was,

by Shahram (not verified) on

My take on that was, Bollinger was not respectful to 75,000,000 Iranians regardless of who Ahmadinijad is. Above all he is the president of a country. Bollinger appeared as arrogant and he was played by the hands of others.


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DUMB

by Daryush (not verified) on

What an stupid and dumb letter. First of all he had no business puking shit from the neo-cons and fox news. Man still, what an dull and stupid letter you wrote, so what made you so proud to publish it here?
Learn from the enemy, Israelis are live under Hitler like regime but see how they unify to make sure that the world is not against them. The Iranian regime is our fight not anyone else's so don't go kissing asses thinking they are going to HELP you bringing democracy to Iran.


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All you Ahmadinejad

by Ahmadinejad is GAY (not verified) on

All you Ahmadinejad supporters can join him in hell. The CU President did what others only dare do after the fact when affored the opportunity. Bollinger exposed that APE as the true fraud he and the regime he represents truly are. If this was done in Iran, the university president would have some thugs knocking on his door @ 5am one day and then quickly whisked over to section 209 of Evin. This is freedom of speech at its best. Notice how that APE never answered any of the questions directly? Becasue he does NOT have the intellectual courage (otherwise known as ability) to do so. Oh, and btw, I learned that there are no kouni's in Iran!! LOL!! he should just look at his Supreme Leader and his council of so-called experts...they are the epitome of "ham-jense baz"...LOL
JACKASSES!!


mrclass

rubbish

by mrclass on

I am happy that Bollinger said what he said. Thank god every once in a while you find a guy with some guts. Enough of  pandering to scum's like Ahamadinejad, Khatami and the rest of these savage monkeys.  He was too polite to this monster. he should have been nasty to ahmadinejad.


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he is an idiot

by alborzi (not verified) on

I agree he is an idiot. If you do not want to listen then do not
invite him, or else do not insult. Thats just uncivilized. Its hard to say, but Ahmadinejad was the civilized one.


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haircut ..!..

by barber (not verified) on

Yu..Bolinger, get a haircut man..


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president of columbia university ,EDUCATED AND CIVILIZED HUH??!!

by asal (not verified) on

I WAS EMBARESSED FOR THE CLUMBIA UNI PRESIDENT ,WHO ACTUALLY MADE A FOOL OF HIMSELF BY INSULTING MR AHMADINEJAD , I HAVE NEVER BEEN A FAN OF AHMADINEJAD ,BUT SEEING HOW GRACEFUL HE RESPONDED AFTER BEING INSULTED ,I DEVELOPED A LOT OF RESPECT FOR HIM ,AND TO U MR BOLLINGER(BULLYINGER SUITS U BETTER) ,IM SURE YOURE ISRAELI FREINDS HAVE ALREADY SENT U YOURE CHECKS FOR BEING PURELY CONTEMTABLE AND AN ABSOLOUT FOOL.U DID MR AHMADINEJAD A FAVOUR BY BULLYING HIM ,MR SELF PROCLAIMED EDUCATED PERSON FROM THE CIVILIZED WORLD !!!??? HA HA
THANKS TO U AHMADINEJAD IS A BIG STAR IN USA


Jeesh Daram

Bollinger a bad host

by Jeesh Daram on

What he did was quite unethical indeed. He should have left the insults to continue by those in FOX TV and not him. However if you listened to the first few minutes of his speech he clearly begged to Ahmadi-Nejad to tone down his anti-Israel rhetorics or else he "might bring down Columbia University too" because they have academic relationship with so many professors in Israel. Clearly he wanted to kiss his Israeli supporters' ass in order not to lose their supports, and so he insulted the Iranian President. As I told everyone before this is an open season on Iranians. Just look around these days it's all about Iran and the little pussycat baby Israel that is being victimized once again, so now they have to make another movie about the Holocaust and give it an Oscar as if one Holocaust movie every year is not enough!


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i agree with you 100% mahdad

by anono21 (not verified) on

i agree with you 100% mahdad


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are u kidding me?

by anono21 (not verified) on

this ass**** knew what he was getting into by inviting the president to columbia. if you are inviting them, have the decency to show some respect, even if you don't agree with what the person stands for. some people don't agree with the things he stands for, i for one don't, but when u invite them, be courteous enough to not be such a child, and take things so personally.

the "golden opportunity" went to shit along with ur "letter", when bollinger introduced the president with such rudeness and disrespect. ur letter is pathetic.