Mahmoud Ahmadinejad probably thought his appearance at Columbia University would be a walk in the park, but he, and I found out differently.

Ahmadinejad portrayed himself as an intellectual and argued that his administration respected reason and science. But the former engineering professor, appearing shaken and irate over he called “insults” from his host, soon found himself drawn into the type of rhetoric that has alienated American audiences in the past.

He provoked derisive laughter by responding to a question about Iran’s execution of homosexuals by saying: “In Iran we don’t have homosexuals like in your country … I don’t know who’s told you that we have this.”

Columbia’s president, Lee Bollinger, set the combative tone in his introduction of Ahmadinejad: “Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator.”

Ahmadinejad retorted that Bollinger’s opening was “an insult to information and the knowledge of the audience here.”

“There were insults and claims that were incorrect, regretfully,” Ahmadinejad said, accusing Bollinger of falling under the influence of the hostile U.S. press and politicians….

…Asked by an audience member if Iran sought the destruction of Israel, Ahmadinejad did not answer directly.

“We are friends of all the nations,” he said. “We are friends with the Jewish people. There are many Jews in Iran living peacefully with security.”

He also said Palestinians must determine their own future.

Ahmadinejad’s past statements about the Holocaust also have raised hackles in the West, and were soundly attacked by Bollinger.

“In a December 2005 state television broadcast, you described the Holocaust as the fabricated legend,” Bollinger told Ahmadinejad said in his opening remarks. “One year later, you held a two-day conference of Holocaust deniers.”

Bollinger said that might fool the illiterate and ignorant.

“When you come to a place like this, it makes you simply ridiculous. The truth is that the Holocaust is the most documented event in human history,” he said.

Ahmadinejad denied he had questioned whether the Holocaust occurred.

“Granted this happened, what does it have to do with the Palestinian people?” he said.

If he’s as smart as he thinks he is he will research history and find that every Palestinian in the land now called Israel was given the opportunity to stay in the new country with full rights of citizenship. That they chose to leave and live in squalor in their own Arab brothers’ land is their own fault.

I read somewhere Monday there were about 10,000 protesters to greet the little man from Iran. BTW, someone needs to tell him while in Rome do as the Romans. Here we change our clothes daily and do not appear in public with the same jacket, sweater and shirt on two times in a row.