Confirming my view that the driving force behind the council is whiny right-wing soreheads who think they should be revered and kept free from all criticism.
The difference is that today's censors have tried to silence and cancel me, as well as others who espouse centrist, liberal and civil libertarian positions — and certainly if they express conservative or God forbid pro-Trump views! That is why this council on academic freedom is so important, and that is why it is so disappointing that so many former liberals and civil libertarians have declined to join it.
Ian Chotner interviewed Dershowitz for the New Yorker to give him plenty of space to whine and spin bullshit.
Dershowitz:
Every year, they would have an overflow crowd to hear me speak about whatever book I was writing, or whatever I was doing. But suddenly, after I represented the Constitution on behalf of President Trump, the library found excuses for never having me. Their first excuse was that my crowds were too big. So I said, “Well, why don’t you limit the crowds?” They said, “Oh, we hadn’t thought of that.”
Chotner:
Can you imagine if Ed Sullivan had done that with the Beatles? It’s a ridiculous excuse.
Yeah, of course. So I’ve been cancelled, basically, by the Chilmark Library. That has resulted in lots of people in Chilmark calling me and calling the library and saying, “We’re being deprived of Alan’s annual speech.”
[Ebba Hierta, the Chilmark’s director, disputed Dershowitz’s characterization, and said, “Not one single person has contacted me to complain that they haven’t had a chance to hear Alan speak.”]
Dershowitz is such a clown:
But you broadly support the work of the committee?
I broadly support efforts to get into what happened on January 6th. I think what happened on January 6th is appalling and dangerous. I think President Trump should not have made the speech he made. I said this publicly. I condemned him for making that speech, even though it was probably protected by the Constitution, but I condemned him for doing it. Just as I condemned the people who tried to interfere with Justice Kavanaugh’s dinner, even though I think they had the right to do it. Just because you have a right doesn’t mean you’re right.
A riot at the Capitol on one hand, and then the Kavanaugh dinner.
My views are fairly complex and nuanced on these issues, but they’ve been simplified and stereotyped.
After Jeffrey Epstein was indicted for sex crimes in 2006, his Harvard lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, called on the expertise of one of his Harvard colleagues, famous linguist Steven Pinker.An obscure document from Epstein’s legal defense shows that Pinker weighed in on the precise meaning of a federal law about using the internet to entice minors into prostitution or other illegal sex acts.Pinker told BuzzFeed News that when he offered his opinion to Dershowitz, he was unaware of the details of the client or the case. He now regrets his involvement, he said.“Though I did this as a favor to a friend and colleague, and not as either a paid expert witness or as a part of a defense team, knowing what I know now I do regret writing the letter,” Pinker said by email.
