NEW YORK - The head of the City Council called Thursday for Columbia University to withdraw its invitation for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak at the Ivy League school, saying they were providing a forum for his "hate speech."

"The idea of Ahmadinejad as an honored guest anywhere in our city is offensive to all New Yorkers," Council speaker Christine Quinn wrote. "Ahmadinejad is a Holocaust denier, here for one reason _ to spread his hate-mongering vitriol on the world stage."

The Iranian president was scheduled to appear Monday at a question and answer session with university faculty and students as part of the school's World Leaders Forum. Columbia spokesman Robert Hornsby said Thursday that there was no plan to cancel the appearance.

Last year, the university dropped plans for a speech by Ahmadinejad due to security and logistical problems. The decision came after a Jewish activist group blasted the university over its invitation to the Iranian president, who has called the Holocaust a "myth" and said Israel should be destroyed.

Columbia's nitwit president used this lame justification for allowing the terrorist sympathizer a forum on his campus:

Columbia University President Lee Bollinger, in announcing the appearance, said Ahmadinejad has agreed to answer questions on Israel and the Holocaust. He described the event as part of "Columbia's long-standing tradition of serving as a major forum for robust debate, especially on global issues."

Bollinger has also been heard to say that the mad terrorist of Iran has a First Amendment right to speak at his university.

I've heard of equal opportunity employment, but how have we gotten to the point in this country where an utter moron can become president of a supposedly respected institution of "higher" learning? Perhaps the "higher" part refers to the drugs Bollinger is obviously ingesting.

As far as Ahmadinejad's "constitutional rights" go, he has none and has expressed his utter contempt for the country that bestows the Constitutional right of free speech on its citizens. In his own country, he suppresses free speech. Why should we give him a platform to spout his inane and dangerous drivel?

Sean Hannity said yesterday that we should allow him to go to and from the United Nations and that's it. I disagree. I prefer the approach that one of the Republican presidential candidates wants to take: Arrest him for war crimes upon his arrival in the U.S. and throw him in Gitmo.

It is nutty enough that we would allow this terrorist to set foot on American soil but Bill Kristol points out something even nuttier in a column in the Weekly Standard: While Columbia University is welcoming a terrorist with open arms, they refuse to allow ROTC recruiters on campus and haven't allowed them since 1969.