I appreciate Fox News giving us live coverage of Ahmadinejad’s speech and comments at Columbia. But I would love to see some crowd reaction shots – how are the students and assembled audience reacting to all of the angels-messages-of-the-divine-prophet-will-of-God talk? So far, it seems quiet – is it a stunned silence, or an appreciative, assenting silence?

Because I can’t help but suspect similar religious language from a Christian wouldn’t get a similarly quiet reception.

UPDATE: Well, now Fox is showing the protesters outside on half the screen.

Now he’s lamenting that there isn’t enough “research from proper perspectives” on the Holocaust.

Why are researchers who “want to approach the issue from a different perspective” jailed, he asks? I presume he’s referring to Holocaust deniers in Germany.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Finally, he gets booed, when he says “Iran has no homosexuals.”

Bollinger follows up by asking about what he hopes to achieve in his visit to the site of the “September 11 tragedy.”

I chafe at the word tragedy. A hurricane or a car accident is a tragedy – there may or may not be blame, but they just happen. The 9/11 attacks were deliberate – they were a massacre.

Of course, Ahmadi calls it “the September 11 tragic event.”

He mentions, in his discussion of 9/11, the need to discuss it more, including “who was responsible.” Hint, hint. The “Truthers” are reading between the lines.