McCain Blasts Columbia University Prez

ABC News’ Bret Hovell Reports: Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., had harsh words Tuesday about Columbia University’s decision to allow the president of Iran to address students and faculty on its campus.

"There’s rank hypocrisy here," McCain said, describing Columbia’s decision to allow Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak, but not to allow the Reserve Officers Training Corps, or ROTC, to talk to students on campus.

Columbia’s president, Lee Bollinger, who gave a scathing introduction to Ahmadinejad during his appearance at the university’s Manhattan campus Monday, has voted to not allow ROTC to return to Columbia as a campus institution. The reason, he has said, is because of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell — the government’s policy toward the service of gays and lesbians in the military.

"To not allow the ROTC … to try to recruit or discuss issues with young men and women on their campus is just disgraceful," McCain said.

Ahmadinejad’s appearance at Columbia has generated a swirl of controversy for the university, which invited the Iranian leader to speak while he was in New York for the United Nation’s general assembly meeting.

McCain, the Arizona Republican seeking his party’s nomination for president, has been critical all week of Columbia’s decision. He spoke today on MSNBC.

And he saved harsh rhetoric for the Iranian president himself.

He called Ahmadinejad’s remarks on Israel "idiotic babble," and professed confusion about the Iranian leader’s denial of the Holocaust.

"What’s that all about?" McCain asked.

Ahmadinejad toned down his previous denials of the Holocaust Monday, saying instead that the mass murder of more than 6 million Jews during World War II may have happened, but was open to interpretation.