Wednesday Mashup (11/14/07)

I don’t really know what to do with this stuff, so here it is…

So Rudy! has offered to mediate the strike of the WGA in Hollywood, has he? Wow. I mean, it’s so beyond the realm of possibility that Giuliani is tossing out this moronic sound bite to the lap dog New York Sun to get out of the spotlight from Judith Regan’s claim in her lawsuit that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp wanted her to lie to protect him, isn’t it?

Well, at least Rudy! won’t have to worry about David Broder investigating his personal life, as noted here; how magnanimous of The Dean Of Beltway Journalism to spare Rudy! the same fate he meted out to the Clintons.

And by the way (and this is a minor point, but I have to note it), since Michael Bloomberg is the mayor of New York City now, isn’t it incredibly wrong to refer to Rudy as “Mayor Giuliani,” as Gerstein does in the Sun story (where he only refers to it as “the writer’s strike,” though I realize that’s what it is, and mentions the people who have been put out of work – I know it’s waaay too much to ask for a report as to why the WGA is actually on strike).

File this under “Paybacks Are Real-Lee A Bitch” (probably would have used that as a post title), but Lee Bollinger of Columbia University is getting some “push back” over his adolescent behavior towards Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when the Iranian president appeared at the school recently.

As noted in this story…

Mr. Bollinger came under intense attack in September when Columbia invited the Iranian president, who has aroused strong passions by confronting the West and denying the Holocaust. Mr. Bollinger defended the invitation, then introduced the Iranian leader with a 10-minute verbal assault.

Unhappiness with that confrontation has simmered on campus ever since, and many professors said it provided the main impetus for the faculty petition.

“I think for most people the Ahmadinejad incident was an occasion that brought out a lot of discomfort,” said Wayne Proudfoot, a religion professor. “It seemed clear to me that the language he used in introducing Ahmadinejad was intended to, and had the effect of, placating, appeasing and being a message to conservative critics.”

Memo to Bollinger: Unless you’re one of them yourself, you will never make the freepers happy, so don’t even try. It will only lead to ruin.

And finally, Happy Birthday to Our Gal Condi Rice (a prior post in the appropriate spirit appears here).