Liveblogging!

Sarah Leonard and I are liveblogging the speech. Bollinger is giving his opening statements right now and has just switched from speaking about our freedom to engage in controversial debate to speaking directly to Ahmadinejad's policies. He just invited Haleh Esfandiari to be a visiting professor at Columbia next year, which is cool. He is being very direct and critical--just the kind of engagement that makes this event so essential to helping turn around American isolationist foreign policy. He has just called Ahmadinejad a "petty and cruel dictator" and is asking him about oppression of women, academics, Baha'i, the press, and other minorities and dissidents.