The Discerning Texan

Here is what Coatsworth said in a Saturday interview with Fox News. So shocking were his comments that we quote verbatim to assure the reader that he actually said what he said: "If Hitler were in the United States and wanted a platform from which to speak, he would have plenty of platforms to speak in the United States. If he were willing to engage in a debate and a discussion, to be challenged by Columbia students and faculty, we would certainly run it."

Coatsworth is grievously wrong on so many counts. His belief that Hitler would be invited to speak across the U.S. is an insult to America's character. And his thought of engaging the guiding force of the Third Reich in collegial debate is simply monstrous. In your worst nightmare, you can imagine the topics. For example: Yes or no, are Jews truly subhuman? Even to conceive of such a colloquy is both soul-deadening and a wellspring of fury. Identical thinking - repugnant on its face and grossly insensitive to the Jewish community and to all good people - drives Coatsworth's event with Ahmadinejad.

Coatsworth's efforts to justify his remarks further showed he is absolutely ill-equipped for his post. He told the Daily News yesterday he meant "in 1939, [when Hitler] had not started the war and the Holocaust hadn't begun." Oh. So six years after Dachau, four years after the anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws and a year after Kristallnacht, when Hitler's intentions were known to all, he'd be a fine speaker for Columbia?