TIM RUTTEN ON AHMADINEJAD AND COLUMBIA: “One of the world’s truly dangerous men, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, left New York a clear winner this week, and he can thank the arrogance of the American academy and most of the U.S. news media’s studied indifference for his victory. If the blood-drenched history of the century just past had taught American academics one thing, it should have been that the totalitarian impulse knows no accommodation with reason. You cannot change the totalitarian mind through dialogue or conversation, because totalitarianism — however ingenious the superstructure of faux ideas with which it surrounds itself — is a creature of the will and not the mind. That’s a large lesson, but what should have made Ahmadinejad’s appearance at Columbia University this week a wholly avoidable debacle was the school’s knowledge of its own, very specific history.”

Read the whole thing. And some of the comments to his post show that the Silvershirts’ descendants are still active, condemning America and excusing dictators.

UPDATE: Related thoughts here.