Obama: I Wouldn't Have Invited Ahmadinejad to Columbia

Senator Obama, who has pledged to meet with the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, during his first year in office if elected president, said today that inviting the leader to speak at Columbia University is "not a choice I would have made."

Appearing in at the Omni Berkshire Place hotel in New York this morning to announce an endorsement from the city's Correction Officers' Benevolent Association, Mr. Obama said that Columbia, his alma mater, has the right to invite speakers to campus, but added that he wouldn't have invited Mr. Ahmadinejad to campus because the president has other forums in which to speak.

When asked to explain why he would meet with Mr. Ahmadinejad as president, but not invite him to speak at Columbia, Mr. Obama said that as president his job would be to look out for the national security of this country, adding that American presidents have met with leaders they don't like, such as President Nixon's meeting with Mao Zedong.

"It is in the United States' interest to make certain that we can stabilize the situation there and avoid further military confrontation and curb some of the state-sponsored terrorism that they've been involved with," he said. "Meeting with somebody is not tantamount to agreeing with them."

Iran has been called the world's "most active state sponsor of terrorism" by the U.S. State Department and Mr. Ahmadinejad's visit to New York has triggered an outcry from elected officials and others who say Columbia should not be giving a platform to a dictator who denies the reality of the Holocaust, vows to eliminate Israel, and supports Islamic extremism.

Tonight, Mr Obama is attending a fundraiser at the New Amsterdam Theater on 42nd Street, "Barack on Broadway," hosted by the president of Disney Theatrical Productions, Thomas Schumacher, the president of the Broadway theater company Jujamcyn, Rocco Landesman, and a few Broadway musical producers.

On Thursday he is speaking at a public rally in Washington Square Park, expected to draw his largest crowds yet in New York.

The correction officers' association that endorsed Mr. Obama today represents 9,000 members and is the largest municipal jail union in the country.