DELUGE OF OBJECTIONS
Ahmadinejad's visit here was preceded by a deluge of objections when it became apparent he wanted to lay a wreath at Ground Zero and that he would speak at Columbia.Presidential candidates from both major U.S political parties took swipes at the president of a country President George W. Bush calls part of "the axis of evil."They said he denied the Holocaust, supported terrorism and armed Iraqi insurgents.New York City councilman Anthony Weiner had a different way of capturing all that."Sometimes we have snakes slithering through the streets of New York," Weiner told protesters outside the United Nations, where Ahmadinejad will speak on Tuesday.And in a city known for its blunt manners, the Iranian president's reception was bound to be frosty. The New York Daily News had the front page headline, "The Evil Has Landed."At Columbia, university President Lee Bollinger pulled no punches.He called him a "petty and cruel dictator" and said his Holocaust denials suggested he was either "brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated.""I feel the weight of the modern civilized world yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for," Bollinger said to loud applause.
In retort, Ahmadinejad berated Bollinger as a rude host."Many parts of his speech were insults," he said. "We actually respect our students and the professors by allowing them to make their own judgments."Not everybody objected to his speaking appearance."If the (Columbia) president thinks it's a good idea to have the leader from Iran come and talk to the students as an educational experience, I guess it's OK with me,"Bush told Fox News.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N24285534.htm
As in the days of Noah....