And now let's welcome our very special guest, "a petty and cruel dictator."

I've always been a fan of dwelling comfortably with ambiguity, but Columbia University's president seemed to take it to an extreme today by inviting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and then discussing him in the introduction pretty much like he wasn't in the room (he had a translator, you know.)

Given the quality of Ahmadinejad's public discourse thus far, just not inviting him would have been a pretty decent decision.

He did offer some historical perspectives that were of merit, like pointing out the hypocrisy of the U.S. with regard to the nuclear issue (to applause) and our tendency to keep memories of the hostage crisis alive while burying those of our complicity in several decades' worth of intervention in Iran, from coups to Saddam's eight-year war against them.

However -- and effusive, flowery language aside -- he also said a bunch of stuff that was frankly unbelievable (painting his nation as a gentle, peace-craving haven of democracy where the press is entirely free, Jews are beloved, and women enjoy dizzy heights of freedom) and some stuff that was just plain nutty, which inevitably casts a shadow of discredit on the entire speech, even the snippets which may have contributed in some small way to a dialog. He and his Western Hemisphere counterpart Chavez are pretty good at doing that.

The excerpt below is probably the nuttiest part (and no, Mr. President, they weren't laughing with you for your remark about living in a straights-only zone. You have your 10 percent non-straights like everyone else, unless you've executed them all out of existence, which is the question you dodged and haven't yet answered. And I'm not sure all of the women in your country consider being "exempt from many responsibilities" as a sign of respect. We tried that argument in the West during the Victorian days, and it didn't quite hold up.)

AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): In Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country.

(LAUGHTER)

We don't have that in our country.

(AUDIENCE BOOING)

AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have it.

(LAUGHTER)

But, as for women, maybe you think that being a woman is a crime. It's not a crime to be a woman.

Women are the best creatures created by God. They represent the kindness, the beauty that God instills in them. Women are respected in Iran. In Iran, every family who is given a girl is given -- in every Iranian family who has a girl, they are 10 times happier than having a son. Women are respected more than men are.

They are exempt from many responsibilities. Many of the legal responsibilities rest on the shoulders of men in our society because of the respect, culturally given, to women, to the future mothers.