We had planned to put away Bruno v. Spitzer for a while. Both men have demonstrated deficits in conduct which have impaired the conduct of public business in New York State.
However, this morning, we read of a new outburst, which we will report to you. In the New York Post, p2,c2, under the headline STEAMED ROLLER: Gov Rips Mike in License Fallout, Kenneth Lovett writes:
“Gov. Spitzer yesterday ripped Mayor Bloomberg for openly questioning the governor’s new policy of allowing illegal immigrants to get driver’s licenses.
“’He [Bloomberg] is wrong at every level – dead wrong, factually wrong, legally wrong, morally wrong and ethically wrong,’ Spitzer said during an appearance in Rochester.
“The attack surprised some insiders, particularly since Spitzer had clung to the popular Bloomberg during the height of the dirty-tricks scandal surrounding the governor over the summer…”
You can link to the entire ten-paragraph Post story about the controversy here.
It is also alleged that an aide tried to stop the governor by ending the press conference,
but that Spitzer continued until his remarks were complete.
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Our views on Columbia and Dr. Bollinger\
Wrong to Agree to Invite the Dictator,
Right to Denounce The Tyrant's Flaws,
Very Good on Fighting British Boycott
Now we proceed to the issue we really wanted to write about today.
Great public attention has been drawn to Monday’s visit by the Iranian tyrant (whom we will hereafter refer to as A) to Columbia University. We limit ourselves to a discussion on free speech, speculation on why the request to speak was granted, and comment on Dr. Bollinger's unique introduction .
The argument that A was denied his Constitutional right to express his views shows a deep misunderstanding of the First Amendment to the Constitution, drafted by James Madison, presented in October 1787 and taking effect in December 1791 after ratification by three-fourths of the states. We cite the text of the First Amendment:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
We are not originalists like Justice Scalia. We apply the prohibition to the executive and legislative branches of federal, state and local government, not merely Congress. There are First Amendment cases involving saluting the flag, wearing T-shirts with slogans and other issues defining speech, but they are not relevant here.
The First Amendment tells us what government cannot do. In no way does it require anyone to invite a speaker to their home, office, school or anywhere else to express their views.
Last year the Iranian sought to speak at Columbia, and we understand that permission was denied. This year, the Iranian consulate renewed its request, and it was granted by President Lee C. Bollinger. Nothing has happened in the last year to change the Iranian's reputation as a man who blithely ignores historic truth to suit his political purposes. It has been claimed that the reason the request was denied last year is that it came too late to make security arrangements. That sounds to us like diplomatic illness, but one never knows.
Why did Dr. Bollinger yield to the Iranian mission’s request for an invitation to New York’s oldest university Why would a normally cautious bureaucrat take a position which our government, as well as the leaders of the state and city where the university is located, would be likely to disapprove profoundly (of course, you can never tell with the State Department)? There is no question that Columbia had the right to invite A, but it certainly had no obligation to clasp the asp to its bosom.
The issue was sharpened when the acting dean of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia, John H. Coatsworth, a former professor of history at Harvard, no less, told the press that he would have invited Adolf Hitler to speak at Columbia University if the late Fuhrer were available.
Surely A is a less egregious guest than Hitler. If the two spoke, there would be a clear conflict of views. One organized the Holocaust, the other denies that it occurred. We could imagine an historic debate between the pair, so both points of view could be presented in the context of a great university's search for enlightenment and excellence...
There are theories as to why Dr. Bollinger precipitated this situation. It could be to attract attention, not only in New York but around the world. It could be to attract money from the oil sheiks of the middle east, Arabs and non-Arabs alike. It is not clear how the invitation to a Shia ruler would go over with the Sunnis, their mortal enemies, but who knows? . The acceptance of A could have been intended to promote Columbia's Center for Middle Eastern Studies, an Arab-dominated institute of historical revisionism and political propaganda, which has been the subject of considerable controversy on its own over rudeness, hostility and undergrading of Jewish students who were curious enough to take courses at the center.
It could be that Dr. Bollinger has unresolved issues over his own origins, which he does not publicly discuss. Bollinger derives from a German place name (Bollingen) and Dr. Bollinger has said he is not Jewish. When called, Columbia University’s press office refused to say what group, if any, he identified with, and that the question was irrelevant. Although it has nothing to do with his fitness to hold office, it might be enlightening with regard to his views on a particular situation. Famous people who are not Jewish are occasionally called Jews, either in praise or in condemnation.
There is also a peculiar but widely known pathology in which people with Jewish ancestors do everything they can to show they have been cleansed of the Hebrew taint.. This particularly applied to a former New York City Parks Commissioner, Robert Moses, son of Emanuel and Bella Moses, and on the national scene, to the late Secretary of Defense Caspar L. Weinberger. On the other hand, Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, although an Anglican, maintained his support for the Jewish community in Britain.
Let us make it clear that Dr. Bollinger is not an anti-Semite. He took an honorable role in initiating a petition of protest, now signed by hundreds of college presidents across the country, with regard to a proposed academic boycott. When the United Kingdom’s new University and College Union called for a boycott of Israeli educational institutions, Dr. Bollinger wrote the following letter, from which we quote::
“At Columbia I am proud to say that we embrace Israeli scholars and universities that the UCU is now all too eager to isolate – as we embrace scholars from many countries regardless of divergent views on their government’s policies. Therefore, if the British UCU is intent of pursuing its deeply misguided policy, then it should add Columbia to its boycott list, for we do not intend to draw distinctions between our mission and that of the universities you are seeking to punish.”
Much has been made by critics of what has been called Dr. Bollinger's tendentious introduction to the university's guest speaker, in which he made clear his distaste for the Iranian government's policies and his personal low opinion of the speaker's intellect.. We happen to like what he said. If for some reason you are about to hear or take poison, it does not harm to be exposed to a taste of the antidote. There is no reason to believe that A would have been more generous in his remarks if he had received the craven reception that people in power customarily expect from their sycophants.
We are certain that no one believed that the Columbia invitation was in any way a reflection of the university's views of A or the policies of his regime.. Freedom of speech works both ways. If A can say anything he wants about anyone, why can't Dr. B do the same. It would be better, of course, if the whole event hadn't happened, but once it did, there was nothing wrong with Dr. B putting in a word for the victims of A's theocratic tyranny. Columbia's guest doesn't just lecture at colleges; he kills people, a lot of people, and for no justifiable reason.
Columbia has not always been hospitable to speakers with unpopular views. An anti-immigration Minuteman spoke last October, and his talk ended when a mob of students stormed the stage of Alfred Lerner Hall, the same venue at which A spoke Monday (Sept 24). Although Dr. Bollinger deplored the violence, it is not clear that substantial sanctions were imposed on those who disrupted the speech. An invitation to the speaker to return this year was recently cancelled, although that may have been for reasons unrelated to his opinions, which, rightly or wrongly, are shared by many Americans
Another point which should be made here is that the objections to A are not primarily on the basis of his alleged anti-Semitism. His nuclear ambitions, his homophobia (including the absurd statement that there are no gays in Iran), his tyrannical regime which imprisons people without trial, and kidnaps, beats and murders its young opponents, his rigid denial of historic fact at his convenience, his shipment of weapons to Iraq which are used to kill Americans, all these differences in world view cause us to doubt the wisdom of his invitation to a hallowed place of learning. This is not a Jewish issue and should not be considered as such..
Rule 28-C: "Don't accept cigarettes in prison." may be relevant here. The reason one should not accept gifts of any kind in prison is that the recipient may find himself assuming obligations to the donor which he would not be comfortable in meeting. Have the millions of dollars that Columbia has received from middle east potentates and oil barons had anything to do with their sensitivity to requests to speak of this nature?
Of course not, say college officials, we are simply devotees of academic freedom.
With freedom should come judgment, but that is sometimes too much ask of people who have lived their professional lives in the shadow of politial correctness..
Last thought: Beware of anyone, in any country, who believes that he or she is possessed of unusually high intelligence, and can therefore determine issues which ordinary people are not competent to judge.
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