As some of you may know, the President of Iran, Ahmadinejad, is in the US and had the chance to speak and answer questions at Columbia University.

Some people say that the President of Columbia, the guy that asked the questions, was an idiot for addressing Ahmadinejad so rude and openly criticizing him.
He started the speech with something like: "this event has nothing to do with the right of the speaker, but with our right to listen" [the speaker being Ahmadinejad]
He called him a "petty and cruel dictator" [with applause]
And also stated that Ahmadinejad was "ridiculous" and "astonishingly uneducated" [also with applause]

Do you guys think Ahmadinejad should not have been treated as he was, that he should've been treated worse, or better?
And what about freedom of speech in general? Should people like him be allowed the freedom of speech he was given?

while it was ok to critisize him he should not have been treated so poorly.

This guy governs a country where the stone women and homosexuals to death, for ridiculous reasons. Sure, a great guy to come and start preaching about education.
I was surprised he wasn't shot, some people take real drastic measures.

I have no idea why he was invited. I think he deserved what he got.

Hmm, yeah for a man that denies the Nazi holocaust, claims that there isn't a single homosexual living in Iran and says that women have the right to be spared from the not-so-pleasant jobs that men have to do (basically women can only be moms), I think he should not have been given the chance to talk his nonsense

But then again I do blame Columbias president for having people clap for Ahmadinejad. He shouldn't have been so directly rude. But he was, so people felt sorry for him and even clapped at the end of his speech...

I think the Columbian president was an idiot about it. By inviting and then introducing the Iranian president in such a way, he was really sticking his head into politics that he obviously cannot handle. Regardless of who he was speaking to...and in fact, especially weighing into account who he was speaking to, it was incredibly immature and unwise to do what he had.

That said, I don't think there's anything really BAD about what he did, just incredibly stupid. If the Iranian president gets his panties all riled up that's his problem. I can't say I have any sympathy for Ahmadinejad, but in fact I feel rather happy for him; he is actually now in a much better position than he was before, simply because of how he was martyred.

So really, I think that everything said about Ahmadinejad was true, and he would be crazy to accept the invitation without expecting some backlash; but, in diplomatic terms, the university president was being stupid.

If we was invited there, then the criticizing was indeed wrong. It is like inviting your enemy into your house, insult him, and then tell him to leave. With this in mind, I suppose you could say that he has a reason for a certain.....negative diplomatic incident.

I suppose I agree with Igna on this matter