Columbia president caught in lie

When the president of Iran went to Columbia University this September for a scheduled speech, he was insulted and castigated by the school’s president. It was different when Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf visited Columbia in 2005, writes a student in the school’s Spectator newspaper on Nov. 9:

“Even University President Lee Bollinger, who apparently prides himself on his tough-talking, no-nonsense treatment of visiting ‘dictators,’ was found wanting when Musharraf came to Columbia in September 2005. ‘President Musharraf is a leader of global importance, and his contribution to Pakistan’s economic turnaround and the international fight against terror remain remarkable. It is rare that we have a leader of his stature at campus,’ Bollinger opined. Musharraf’s democratic credentials are far inferior to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s, but Bollinger and the U.S. government he worships have never given much play to the ideal of consistency.”