If Columbia President Lee Bollinger and Dean of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs John Coatsworth are indicative of the entire Columbia University staff, is a degree in any kind from Columbia worth more than the paper useless words are printed upon?

Watching Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech followed by a brief Q&A today left me wondering what exactly constitutes being an academic. Ahmadinejad, as he stated on numerous occasions in order to put himself on par with those who would question him and above the audience filled with graduate and undergraduate students, is also an academic allegedly teaching one class per week in the area of ’science’ still to this day. Would you want an engineer teaching you biology?

What was most perplexing about today’s event was the sheer ignorance shared by both Bollinger and Coatsworth. Bollinger stated he hoped Ahmadinejad’s presumed mad words would alienate him inside Iran, which immediately told me Bollinger had never seen Ahmadinejad speak outside of Iran or realized there isn’t exactly a free press, freedom of speech or an actual voting democracy inside the country Bollinger wished would shun Ahmadinejad.

Coatsworth lobbed some probing questions, but his one follow-up question was simply batted away by Master of Deception. That term of endearment for Ahmadinejad is written in half jest, as the Iranian president speaks crystal clear within his own borders yet turns one question asked towards himself into upwards of twenty outside the comfy confines of whatever palace he calls home in Tehran.

Coatsworth asked Ahmadinejad if he supported the destruction of the state of Israel. Ahmadinejad, squinting and half-smiling as he coyly answers, “we love all nations.” We know that not to be the case and he routinely stands in front of crowds chanting “death to America,” “death to Israel” and “death to England.”

But the devil is in the details of his response, details Coatsworth and the rather dimwitted crowd present never seemed to grasp. Ahmadinejad never actually says the word ‘Israel,’ for he believes there is no such state known as Israel. He repeatedly refers to the land as Palestine, stating he wants to open up the entire populace living in both Israel and the Palestinian Territories to a vote which receives a round of applause from the audience.

Did those in attendance not understand what just was pulled over their eyes? Surely the same institution which prided itself in being a beacon of free speech actually knows the difference between a debate and a whitewash, no?

Coatsworth also asked Ahmadinejad if Iran supported terrorist groups, which in itself was a question anyone with any knowledge of the Iranian state’s actions knows the answer to and anyone with any knowledge of Ahmadinejad knows how he will answer said question.

Ahmadinejad skillfully deflects the question and talks of U.S. support for the Kurdish terrorist group PKK, though he doesn’t mention it by name. Lost though is the intention of the question, as alluded by by President Bollinger in his opening remarks. Bollinger stated emphatically it is a known quantity Iran aids Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Jihad. All three are Islamist organizations designated by the United States State Department as terrorist groups. The PKK, by the way, has the exact same designation and is at war with a U.S. ally in Turkey therefore the allegations of support are rather odious.

But Ahmadinejad does not view Hezbollah, Hamas or PIJ as terrorist outfits, rather he sees them as resistance groups all resisting the occupation of all of Palestine. The Palestinians killed by Israel are worth their weight in gold, but those killed by any of the above named three are merely pawns in the game Iran has been playing for three decades.

As expected, Coatsworth does not press Ahmadinejad on his answer nor does he take the submitted question and clarify it to try to back the Iranian president into a corner. For that was not the purpose of today’s spectacle, rather it was to try to divert the path towards war that both Iran and the United States are making headway towards. In fact, Iran is already at war against the United States, the U.S. just hasn’t decided to fight back.

The clip that will most likely be replayed by non-Arab media outlets over and over is that of Ahmadinejad’s answer to a question that Iran hangs homosexuals. This is a fact and is well documented, yet Ahmadinejad does not lie in his answer.

In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals, like in your country. We don’t have that in our country. In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don’t know who’s told you that we have it.

He’s right, in his and the Islamists’ own view. Men who are sexually attracted to other men and women who are sexually attracted to other women in Iran are not homosexuals, but rather they are diseased criminals guilty of an abominable sin. Coatsworth, once again, allows Ahmadinejad to skate free from this absurd response.

Throughout this whole build-up to Ahmadinejad’s speech, the U.S. media and American politicians were seemingly more concerned about Ahmadinejad’s desire to erase the state of Israel from the map or his denial of the Holocaust. Call me self-centered or what you will, but I barely care about that. I am an American and I care about his regime’s repeated aid towards groups, both foreign and domestic, that aim to attack my country and kill my neighbor. If I was British, I’d be concerned about the same, rather than what he states he will do to an ally.

Allies stick together, that’s certainly true outside of the confines of the halls of the American Left. However Ahmadinejad has clearly presented himself to be an enemy of the United States, not just Israel, yet we the American media consumer might not realize in Ahmadinejad’s plan for Israel’s destruction it is the United States that will have to be the first domino to fall.

The blunder by Columbia University is not in trying to open dialogue, but rather believing it would serve the purpose they wished it to. Beaming across Iranian state-run television is Ahmadinejad explaining his solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict and the oblivious audience cheering as they did not recognize the slight of hand. Today was a victory for both Ahmadinejad and Islamism, given to them by Columbia University and dirtied in the blood of American and allied soldiers, innocent Iraqis, Israelis, Turks and, perhaps most unfortunate, innocent Iranians.

So what is a degree from Columbia University worth? You should try Phoenix Online.

UPDATE: I hold no psychic abilities, though as much as anyone else for that matter, however it appears my intuition with respect to how the Iranian state-run media would spin Ahmadinejad’s visit has rung true.

Did you know that every United States media outlet is a monolith and spoke out against Columbia University inviting Ahmadinejad?  I didn’t either, though I must admit I don’t read or view every single outlet in this nation.  Did you know Ahmadinejad spoke “amid standing ovation of the audience?”  Me either.  Perhaps that was cut from the footage I saw.  There were applause, as noted above and in some of the most inopportune times, but the only time I saw people stand was when the session was over.