Outrage on the Charles

Well, as if there were any real doubt, we're getting another excellent look at the kind of people that run our institutions of higher learning. Harvard, the same people who ran Larry Summers out on a rail, have invited former Iranian president Mohammed Khatami to speak on the subject of, um the ethics of tolerance in the age of violence. That whirring sound you hear is George Orwell spinning as his mind boggles.

That's right, the geniuses at Foggy Bottom have given this former tyrant and patron of terrorism a "limited visa" so that he can present his ideas to the American people. And when did the leading lights of the Kennedy School choose to have the man who arrested, tortured and imprisoned thousands to speak? The day before the fifth anniversary of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks. To use an old phrase, that's so September 10th. I think the American people got a very clear glimpse of the kind of tolerance Khatami prefers about five years ago.

Now to be fair, the State Department was probably obligated to issue a visa given that Khatami was invited to speak to the U.N. However, I'd be suprised if there isn't a way to confine him to New York City for the duration of his stay, rather than enabling his grand tour of the U.S.

As for Harvard, the same university that was so outraged by Ronald Regan that they rescinded an invitation to speak that they had extended to him (the courageous pre-summers administration caved yet again to the horror and outrage expressed by the faculty), has been able to find it in their hearts to overlook Khatami's open support of international terrorism, his crackdown against thousands of reformers in his own country, the torture he sanctioned and the uncounted thousands who have undoubtedly died in Iran's prisons during Khatami's seven year reign of terror.

How any Harvard alum can continue to donate when people that would sanction this are running the asylum is utterly beyond me.