I saw a YouTube blurb of the interview in which Pelley referred to himself a just a simple reporter. I concur.
expat | Email | Homepage | 09.24.07 - 8:11 am | #

Bravo...Amen...Thank you...God bless America and clean your firearms.
Oracle of Delaware | Email | Homepage | 09.24.07 - 8:15 am | #

Is columbia paying Mahmoud? If so, can that not be considered sponsoring terrorism? I believe columbia now needs to forfeit all Federal money's it receives. There needs to be consequences for decisions such as these...
MarkJ | Email | Homepage | 09.24.07 - 8:48 am | #

All universities should be off the Federal dole: the liabilities of the practice long ago exceeded the benefits.

Why is academia so arrogant? Because they have so much unearned cash to play with!
Brett | Email | Homepage | 09.24.07 - 9:00 am | #

Ah, but if the federal government took the money away, how would it regulate the universities?
snoring citizen | Email | Homepage | 09.24.07 - 9:17 am | #

I have to take issue with one small item in Pat's column:

"A university or any school is free to determine who can speak and who cannot on their campus. They can be philosophically consistent about it, or not; and, as we have seen recently, they generally are not."

That's not quite accurate. It holds only for the private schools such as Columbia. They can be as nutty as they want in terms of restricting speech. However, the PUBLIC universities (as an arm of the government) are under the full force of the 1st admendment. That doesn't mean they don't try to get around it, as recently seen at the ban of Summers by UC Davis, but they are subject to legal action. Check out www.thefire.org and their publications.

In fact, Pat's general thesis is easily verified by FIRE's case history in which most can be seen in the light of postmodernism nihilism, and the childish need to not to hear what they don't want to hear.
MM | Email | Homepage | 09.24.07 - 9:23 am | #

Actually Coatsworth was just on Fox about an hour ago saying he *wouldn't* invite Hitler.
lordsomber | Email | Homepage | 09.24.07 - 9:26 am | #

This is really bordering on the bizzare.

We're not too far away from seeing a Jim Jones type incident at one of these universities. To be this much out of touch with what is good, right and successful in this world, can only lead to a psychotic breakup when reality comes crashing down.
SteveH | Email | Homepage | 09.24.07 - 10:00 am | #

Uh-Uh! There's something fishy here. You can't bitch and moan about campus speech codes and the like, and then go on to demand that a certain class of speaker must be banned from campuses. But then, intellectual consistency seems to be a particularly hard act for conservatives to master, so I'm not surprised.

For my own part, I'm happy to see Ahmadinejad speaking at Columbia, in the sense that a bacteriologist is happy to see a pathogen on his microscope slide. There's no particular danger and something useful might be learned.
Norman Levitt | Email | Homepage | 09.24.07 - 10:46 am | #

Norman you are part of the problem sir. Intellectual consistency now means handling smallpox on an equal level with common cold viruses?

Yeaaaa....Your even handed brilliance somehow eludes me and the knowledge i almost effortlessly aquired by the THIRD GRADE!
SteveH | Email | Homepage | 09.24.07 - 11:22 am | #

Doing something out of narcissistic self-indulgence and/or ideological fervor are not quite the same thing as being committed to truth, knowledge, free speech or freedom of inquiry. That is my point, Norman, and if you had bothered to read the post and links, you might have known that. But intelligence and rational thinking are somewhat hard to come by on the political left these days, seeing as how they do most things--including posting comments on other people's blogs--out of narcissistic self-indulgence and/or ideological fervor.
Dr. Sanity | Email | Homepage | 09.24.07 - 11:36 am | #

I very much affirm what Dr. Pat has posted here, today.
For those who believe that allowing
the Iranian president to speak is true
"academic freedom" let us consider this:
Food is that which nourishes the body, just as information and intelligent
exchange is the nourishment of the mind.
Various kinds of food have different
qualities of nourishment. But there is also that which would disguise itself as food, but actually brings death--we call
this POISON!! People who cannot
distinguish between a poisoner trying to administer poison, and varying
kinds of food, should not be allowed to run universities.
D.C. | Email | Homepage | 09.24.07 - 11:46 am | #

Snoring citizen wrote:

"Ah, but if the federal government took the money away, how would it regulate the universities?"

It wouldn't. The market would do it. This means that colleges and universities would have to actually pick and choose what to pursue, and that would be based on the "market" for academia.

Antioch College, a private college that seemed to specialize in leftist drivel, is closing. More successful have been college programs that have been essentially no-frills business education, hard sciences, and engineering.

For all the trouble liberal arts students cause, which of them end up in jobs that fatten the accounts of alumni associations?
R S | Email | Homepage | 09.24.07 - 11:55 am | #

Yesterday on Fox, Brit Hume was arguing with Juan and Maura about this. Juan and Maura attempted to concede that Columbia was acting inconsistently by banning one side and inviting the other.

Brit said something that sent a chill up my spine, it was perfect. He disagreed with Juan and Maura:

"THEY ARE BEING DISTURBINGLY CONSISTENT."

Hear, hear. It would be fabulous if Columbia's only crime was consistency. In fact, they are perfectly consistent in SIDING WITH AMERICA'S ENEMIES AND BANNING HER FRIENDS.

There are dark forces in control of our institutions.
bulbasaur | Email | Homepage | 09.24.07 - 12:25 pm | #

Dr. Sanity,
I always enjoy reading your blog. Do you realize that the first part of Wretchard's quote is from Ecclesiastes Chapter 3? (Jewish Scriptures/ Christian Old Testament)
He did leave off part of verse 5 however. There was a singing group back in the 60s or 70s that used part of that same chapter in one of their songs. Beatles? (Ok, so I was not born till 1970.)
Jon Baker | Email | Homepage | 09.24.07 - 12:42 pm | #

But if they’d kept him from talking nobody would be talking now.

At least a few more Americans can pronounce nutjob's name now.
americafirst | Email | Homepage | 09.24.07 - 1:56 pm | #

Part of his speaking tour, I'm sure, includes an invitation to convert to Islam. Which, as you know, is a requirement for them to go to war.

As a side note, I wanted to mention another tactic that the left loves to use: art. Anything and everything is justifiable if it is done in the name of art. Take the case of the MIT student wearing a mock bomb vest to the airport. I can't imagine anyone being that unbelievably stupid, but there she is, doing it, and justifying her idiocy by calling it performance art.
Peter Wiggin | Email | Homepage | 09.24.07 - 2:47 pm | #

>>(Ok, so I was not born till 1970.)>>

I'm not positive, but I think that was a Pete Seeger song...

>then go on to demand that a certain class of speaker must be banned from campuses.>

One also need not demand that a cow pasture be pristine before crossing it. One need only avoid stepping in the cow pies. Columbia stepped in a cow pie.
suek | Email | Homepage | 09.24.07 - 3:37 pm | #

And finally, if you want to understand why that which is truly evil --embracing death, slavery, and nihilism--is now presented and even trumpeted as the "good" while the good is dismissed, denigrated and mocked; then you would do well to understand the psychology and ideology of the covert enemies of America and of civilization--the adult children of postmodern nihilism. (ala Dr Sanity)
--------------------------------
1. Mahmoud was gushing about "God."
W. Bush has stated moderate Moslems
and Christians believe in the same, overall, "ONE GOD." The insanity of Religionism is plain to see.

2. Again, it is those who see the world as Lyndon LaRouche does: ("The Earth can easily sustain a population of 25,000,000,000") who are the "enemies" of all life, human and non-human.

Religion and Humanism are the twin towers of evil.
Why this is so difficult to understand is a mystery.
R Moshki | Email | Homepage | 09.24.07 - 3:41 pm | #

suek (and Mr. Wigger) - Seeger wrote the song but The Byrds made it famous in '65.

By the way suek - very apt analogy you've written.
Jack Ryan | Email | Homepage | 09.24.07 - 5:45 pm | #

Actually, the only lyric that Seeger penned in that song was swear it's not too late. The rest was from the King James Bible. He merely composed the music.

And thaaaat's...the rest of the story.
Jack Ryan | Email | Homepage | 09.24.07 - 5:50 pm | #

I think I have a Pete Seeger recording with it on it...unfortunately, I can't find new needles for the turntable. In fact, I have a number of old 33s I'd sure like to get on CDs...and my daughter bought me a computer program of some kind so that I could - but you have to be able to play them on the turntable. Back to the needle problem...!
suek | Email | Homepage | 09.24.07 - 6:06 pm | #

I stand corrected - Seeger did indeed record it in '62 on his The Bitter & The Sweet album. I guess I could have checked on that before opening my yaw.

As for your turntable problem, try 'The Needle Doctor' here - http://www.needledoctor.com/Onli...lacement- Stylus - should be able to find what you're looking for.
Jack Ryan | Email | Homepage | 09.24.07 - 6:18 pm | #

Is "free speech" the real issue or just more postmodern wordgaming to avoid the real debate? Knowing when to say "no" and how to draw a defining line are at the heart of the right to defend oneself. Too bad the libs can't embrace that right. It might help them come into contact with a glimmering sense of self to begin with.
Katina | Email | Homepage | 09.24.07 - 8:55 pm | #

What better example of postmodern nihilism and narcissistic self-indulgence, than this from only a few days ago:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/2.../ 22airport.html

"...The student, Star A. Simpson, 19, is “very lucky to be alive,” said Maj. Scott S. Pare of the state police, commanding officer of the airport’s security contingent. “Had she not followed our instructions” when confronted by state troopers, “we would have used deadly force,” Major Pare said.

The trouble began when Ms. Simpson, wearing a lighted circuit board sewn to her black hooded sweatshirt, walked up to a customer service desk at Logan International Airport and asked about an arriving flight carrying a passenger she was to meet. A nine-volt battery was attached to the circuit board, and Ms. Simpson carried a wad of modeling clay in one hand..."
Dave | Email | Homepage | 09.24.07 - 10:30 pm | #

Jack...I did the obvious and searched for Pete Seeger and cd....found this:

http://www.amazon.com/Pete-Seege...?tag=dogpile- 20

The same record I have plus professionally done! Probably worth the price - think that's the route I'll take. I have others though - thank you for the link to the needle guy.

And ... if you check that link, and click on the "larger image", you'll find the song "To Everything There is a Season"....
suek | Email | Homepage | 09.25.07 - 11:11 am | #

Cool & no prob.
Jack Ryan | Email | Homepage | 09.25.07 - 11:35 am | #

Dr. Sanity, it's a shame that Professor Norman Levitt seems more interested in throwing insults than in engaging the arguments you present, especially since he is author/editor of several excellent books on the postmodern academic attack on science and reason, among them Higher Superstition and The Flight from Science and Reason. But it could have been worse: In a 2004 email to journalist Mike S. Adams he wrote "I think turd eating, s*** sucking mother f***** fits you just about right...Die before you plan to, and in much pain." Charming.
pst314 | Email | Homepage | 09.26.07 - 1:20 pm | #