Given time, I could probably fill five pages single-spaced with the number of times leftists have "crashed" meetings they are not professionally qualified to attend, in order to make a political point. Look at the recent WTO meetings, or any conservative presentation on a college campus.

The ALA has the right, like any organization, to include or exclude whoever they want from their assemblies.

This does not make them immune to charges of pandering to a totalitarian state, at the expense of those suffering under it, when they do so. It is particularly galling when they then turn around and spew about the threat to civil liberties presented by the Patriot Act. Whether those threats are real or imagined is not the issue here, and maybe Ed shouldn't have dragged that in.

It is also ridiculous to dismiss any pro-freedom Cuban organization simply because it is virulently anti-Castro. This is like ignoring any Jewish organization because it is virulently anti-Nazi. Of COURSE the opponents of oppression in Cuba support the downfall of its current government, and work with people with similar goals.

Good God...keynote speaker Bernie Sanders. If some creep like David Duke was keynote speaker at a national professional conference, you'd never hear the end of it.