FIRST AMENDMENT UPDATE. Ahmadinejad speaks at Columbia. Much protest. Much coverage, largely negative (The New York Daily News headline: "The Evil Has Landed"). The Republic endures.

Just the other day National Review was telling us that "Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia has nothing to do with freedom of speech." Today at NR, Michael Rubin:

Lee Bollinger's introduction didn't make the news [in Iran]. But then again, why should it? Ahmadinejad's state-controlled press does not support such concepts as free speech and free expression.

I've noticed that, whenever they fail to cut off someone's mike, they murmur something like this about free speech as if it were some small consolation.