Columbia Trivia

This from the Wall Street Journal ($): "Oh, and by the way, [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's] regime also executes homosexuals for the crime of being themselves. Maybe if Columbia University President Lee Bollinger were aware of the latter fact he would reconsider his invitation to the Iranian president to speak on his campus next Monday.

Mr. Bollinger, notoriously, voted in 2005 not to readmit an ROTC program to Columbia (absent from the university since 1969), ostensibly on the grounds of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding gay service members. Never mind that other upper-tier schools, including Princeton, Dartmouth, Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania all have ROTC programs. Never mind, too, that in 2003 the Columbia student body voted in favor of readmission by a 2-1 margin. In Mr. Bollinger's view, 'the university has an obligation, deeply rooted in the core values of an academic institution and in First Amendment principles, to protect its students from improper discrimination and humiliation.'"

Maybe if the military had a "tell and hang'em high" policy against homosexuals, Columbia would welcome ROTC. More liberal hypocrisy. (No, hypocrisy...Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hates Bush, too! Birds of a feather; the enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that. - Ed.)

UPDATE: Related via David Bernstein at Volokh: "And, come to think of it, I can't resist the contrast between the reaction to Rumsfeld at Stanford and, judging from the stories in the Columbia Spectator, the almost complete quiescence, apart from some Jewish groups, at Columbia regarding the invitation to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."

The President Problem

Clive Crook in the National Journal gives an interesting assessment of the "problems" of the Bush presidency. It's not something obvious, but a point I have been making for awhile:

"[Crook's] point is this. The awesome obtuseness of the administration on the issue has created a falsely confident and passionate opposing consensus. Attitudes on that side can be just as tyrannical as they are within the White House. In both camps, the view is: You are either with us or against us -- and if you're against us, by the way, you're an idiot."

While I disagree with his equating the "obtuseness" of the administration (correct) with "tyranny" on both sides (this is a media created impression of Karl Rove and implies a knowing strategy that is simply lacking, hence "obtuse"), I do agree that Bush has been so polarizing that merely being anti-Bush seems to be a winning strategy. I do not believe, in fact, that the country is as anti-Bush as the numbers shows, but the Democrats seem to believe that fully and have crafted everything they are doing based on this position.

Being anti-Bush takes no thought. Criticisms without solutions is a sign of a lack of intellectual vigor. This is not what the country needs right now.