But wasn't that a doozy of a World Leaders Forum? We had autocratic thugs, alleged autocratic thugs, cruel and petty dictators, and, for variety's sake, the visionary leader of an up-and-coming democracy. This'll be a tough one to top. But don't worry, John Coatsworth: you won't have to to resurrect Hitler to make next year's WLF as action-packed as this one. All you have to do is choose from Bwog's WORLD LEADERS WISHLIST!:

Here are 20(ish) leaders we'd like to see squirming uncomfortably at next year's Forum. Because if you can get Ahmadinejad to speak here, you can get anyone to speak here.

In no particular order:

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberia: Africa's first woman president. Also
the first president in post-civil war Liberia.

Paul Kagame, Rwanda: Former head of the RPF and "hero" during the Rwandan civil war. Now either Africa's most dynamic leader or a dictatorial autocrat, depending on who you ask. Has the very tough job of making sure Rwanda doesn't lapse into another genocide.

Monmohan Singh and/or Sonia Gandhi, India: Gandhi is the most controversial person in India; Jeffrey Sachs once credited Singh for rescuing the country through his program of economic liberalization.

The World Leaders Forum might be over, but Bangladesh's problems sure aren't! Armin Rosen reports on the last of this round of WLF events.

Like Turkmenistan, Bangaldesh finds itself straddling a perilously thin line. In Turkmenistan, a solid tradition of dictatorship makes it all too easy for president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov to lead the central Asian country away from democracy (those who saw him speak this past Monday learned that this is exactly what he plans to do). Bangladesh has an equally checkered history of civil war and military rule, although Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed's relatively bullshit-free speech at the World Leaders Forum leads me to believe that the country probably won't revert to destructive historical habit--but it was difficult to watch Dr. Ahmed without thinking there's a decent chance that it will.

Dr. Ahmed was surprisingly candid as to the challenges facing his country. In impeccable English the Princeton PhD explained that his country holds long term promise, and that trade liberalization, foreign development and support from NGOs have put Bangladesh on pace to half poverty by 2015. Bangladesh could be a middle-income country within two decades, says Dr. Ahmed, who did an excellent job of presenting his country as the least dysfunctional of the world�s poverty-stricken hellholes--but he was nevertheless clear that Bangladesh remains a poverty-stricken hellhole. He touched on land shortages, corruption and market threats to the country's economically vital readymade garment industry as challenges that could break his small country of 150 million people. And he closed on the ominous prediction that global warming will sink 30% of Bangladesh within the next couple centuries.

Yes, presidents who weren't "petty and cruel dictators" also participated in the World Leaders Forum. Correspondent Pierce Stanley checks up on two former U.S.S.R states now headed by Columbia alumni.

The World Leaders Forum (aka PrezBo's giving of the finger to authoritarian regimes) carried on this morning with the goal of taking on a new foe-- Russia. However, today PrezBo had a few friends who also believe in the "individual spirit of liberal democracy" to back him up. Columbia alums Thomas Hendrik Ilves CC '76, President of Estonia (an Edward Herrmann look alike who sports a nifty bow tie for all of his public events) and the President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili Law '94, joined PrezBo in Low this morning to discuss the challenges of European integration, economic progress in small, newly-democratic nations living in the shadow of their neighbors, and cyber attacks, and to proverbially stroke each other for having attended Columbia.

Ilves was nostalgic for cheap beer at the West End, where he said he occasionally treats Estonian academics to a night out to show them what student life at Columbia is like and ponder the value of the core. Hmm... no wonder his efforts to nationalize a core curriculum in Estonian universities consistently fail. Saakashvili on the other hand said that his favorite Columbia memory was his first day of class when he realized that he had a chance to take classes from professors and "theoreticians of the law" that he thought had been dead. More than anything he seemed happy to be have simply survived a PrezBo introduction. "President Bollinger I want to thank you for this unusually soft introduction."

Seemingly the only Columbia heroes missing from Roone Arledge Auditorium today were Jeffrey Sachs and John Jay -- though both were certainly at the Havel/Clinton/PrezBo prestige-aganza in spirit. In an event that vindicated CUArts' alumni donation siphoning existence, the two former world leaders touched on both fighting TB and the Federalist Papers during their conversation, loosely based on the theme "Challenges of New Democracies."

Prezes Václav and Bill were certainly in top form, but it was PrezBo's thoroughly germane sprezzatura that stole the show. "One more lecture [at CU] and he'd be up for tenure," he sparkled, welcoming "Professor" Clinton onto the stage. Meanwhile, one student overheard in the audience clearly favored the Czech: "They should make Havel the new dean of SIPA," he said, "keep him around".

A few points into the discussion between the world (and "world university") leaders, Clinton took some time out to give a "pro-mo... for Hav-el," placing him in the ranks of Gandhi and Mandela. "No one should underestimate what he did in a peaceful way," he said. Responding in a playful tone, PrezBo asked, "President Havel, do you have anything nice to say about President Clinton?" Applause and diplomatic laughter erupted politely from the packed house (Clinton, however, couldn't contain himself, turning a vivid scarlet).

Labyrinth of Books = Labyrinth of Despair

Female World Leaders Visit Columbia; Confused World Husbands Still Waiting For Dinner

GS Students Petition For Bigger Allowance, Later Curfew, Use of Car

Dianne Murphy: Stop Being A P#%$y

Previewing Stiglitz's Next Best-Seller

Last Tuesday night's World Leaders Forum kickoff event was billed as "a discussion with distinguished panelists" on the subject of globalization. It ended up more like the first leg of a book tour for University Professor and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, who monopolized the event, discussing his forthcoming manifesto, Making Globalization Work. No one seemed to mind.