WASHINGTON - The president of Columbia University apparently believes that he evinced extraordinary courage - not only once, but twice. First, when he faced down his critics and, in the name of "freedom of academic discourse," hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and a second time when he insulted his guest. "A petty and cruel dictator," he called him.

Standing at the podium in his university, facing his faculty, protected by American police, Professor Lee Bollinger really is a big hero. However, both the invitation and the insult said more about the host than about the guest. What has become clear beyond all doubt this week, if there had been any doubt, is that Ahmadinejad, petty or not, cruel or not, is above all a world-class celebrity of the sort that a New York backdrop only flatters.

How natural the news broadcasters sounded as they skipped from the Iranian's adventures in the big city to those of O.J. Simpson in Las Vegas on his way to a failed bank robbery. Nonsensical chatter about academic freedom alongside the tabloid Simpson story. Like the publisher that wanted to publish Simpson's book, If I Did It, Columbia University simply could not resist the temptation.