Under Assault at Harvard: the Freedom to Bill Scumbags

By Larry Lowell
Boston-Area College Correspondent

The miserable undergraduates have gotten the hell out of Cambridge so it's time for the Harvard faculty to concentrate on what it does best: feeling sorry for itself.

Today's neediest case: well-known champion of academic freedom and former mouthpiece for a loathsome sex offender Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr., Professor of Law at the Harvard Law School.  His sad story of cruel oppression – probably the worst one involving sex crimes since Brett Kavanaugh – has been playing out for most of the last year.

If you have your hankies and violins at the ready, we'll start from the beginning.  To keep the undergraduates from throwing themselves in to the Charles River like that guy from that Faulkner book we never read, Harvard College houses upperclass, um, persons in residential Houses.  You have to live and eat there, with rare exception, and to its credit, the House system gives students a social and support network that doesn't depend on wealth, status, or prep school attended (unlike, for example, Princeton).

The Houses are superintended by what used to be called a House Master but is now a Resident Dean.  The deal is simple: in exchange for rent-free life in accommodations that are just one step down from a mansion, the Dean, who should have some relationship to Harvard University, although, like Sullivan, not one necessarily involving undergrads, is supposed to foster a sense of community and make sure that the little grinders don't collapse over their problem sets.

Also there's plenty of free booze.

Resident Deans, to reduce their workload to just about nil, appoint and rely on a large network of graduate student tutors, who, in exchange for less grand accommodation and free food, actually have to talk to and eat with the kiddos.

Prof. Sullivan wishes to point out that this man
looks nothing like Harvey Weinstein

Sounds like the easiest gig in the world, right?  And it's nearly impossible to f**k up, as generations of alkie housemasters can attest.  So what happened to Professor Sullivan, the now former Master of Winthrop House?

We mentioned that he was a tenured Professor at Harvard Law School.  In addition to trousering about $300 large a year for recycling the same lectures year after year, these worthies are entitled to earn additional pelf by “consulting,” or lending their names and reputations to clients of greater or lesser odiferousness at rates of up to $1,000 an hour.  You may ask why if teaching at Harvard Law School is a full-time job, these guys have the time and effort to aid poor underprivileged clients like Claus von Bulow?

Don't sweat – a tenured Harvard Law Professor is required to do little if any original work to hold down his or her sinecure, so they have plenty of time to consult.

And if you wonder why highly-compensated (at least in comparison to their wretched GSAS colleagues) law professors need to rake in even more bucks from creeps, you haven't priced too many 12-room Queen Annes within walking distance of Langdell lately.

Professor Sullivan, whose specialty is criminal law, had the chance to fill his pockets with money from any number of clients.  The client he chose was Harvey Weinstein.

According to the Boston Globe, it did not go well:

Students began protesting in January when the news broke that Sullivan would be part of Weinstein’s defense team. They argued that Sullivan’s role as a live-in father figure to some 400 students in student housing conflicted with his role defending Weinstein, whose case was a catalyst for the #MeToo movement, and they questioned how he would field future complaints of sexual assault.

Among the exiguous duties of a Resident Dean it turns out is acting as a front-line adjudicator of sexual harassment and assault claims, which can and do exist at Harvard even when they don't involve Emeritus Professors of Government.

Imagine that you are say a sophomore woman in Winthrop House who fought off an assault from some asshole at or after a party.  Imagine too that your Housemaster, er, Resident Dean,  had been quoted at length in court and in the media trivializing the claims of Weinstein's hundreds of credible victims or repeating the loathsome plant-nourisher's ridiculous defense that the skanks were begging for it, which is what his mouthpiece would in fact have to do.

Might you reasonably wonder how sympathetic your Housemaster would be to your complaint?  Especially if your attacker offers up the same crap defenses as Weinstein?  And if you were Harvard and under some obligation to maintain an environment in which victims of sexual violence felt that their College would hear their claims sympathetically, might you wonder if there was a conflict between Sullivan's obligations as Housemaster and his duties to his scumbag client?

You might.

And, after some investigation, Harvard reached that conclusion.  It told Sullivan while he could continue to Profess at The Law School whilst representing guilty sleazebags under the Dershowitz Doctrine, he could not hold a job that required him to assist victims of sexual assault or harassment.

As would be the case with Harvard Professors told they can't have everything they want just because they teach at Harvard, Prof. Sullivan had a well-intellectualized hissy fit:

In his first remarks since he lost the deanship last month, Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. said he envisions creating an institution that could work within and beyond Harvard to reform academia and restore reasoned discourse on campuses.

Really?

Was Harvard's decision that serving as a Housemaster was fundamentally inconsistent with taking bucks to slime victims of a serial sex offender an assault on reasoned discourse? Is stating for $1,000 an hour that Ashley Judd was “begging for it” really an exercise of academic freedom?

Let's ask an objective source, Harvard Law Professor Randall Kennedy, who wrote an impassioned defense of Sullivan in The New York Times, although to his credit it began: “Mr. Sullivan is my friend and colleague.”

Oh.  Well, let's hear him out anyway.  Prof. Kennedy ended his column thusly:

Friends of academia should insist that Harvard answer the question: Why is serving as defense counsel for Harvey Weinstein inconsistent with serving as a faculty dean?

Well, we just told you why.  Indeed Prof. Kennedy knows full well why, as he states in his column:

Student opposition to Mr. Sullivan has hinged on the idea of safety — that they would not feel safe confiding in Mr. Sullivan about matters having to do with sexual harassment or assault given his willingness to serve as a lawyer for Mr. Weinstein. Let’s assume the good faith of such declarations (though some are likely mere parroting). Even still, they should not be accepted simply because they represent sincere beliefs or feelings.

How Prof. Kennedy knows the real views of undergraduates he does not teach or otherwise interact with is a mystery, but just remember that if you're a Professor at Harvard Law School, you, in A.J. Liebling's words, need not cite any authority, being it.

There's actually much more to the story involving claims by tutors that Sullivan fucked up the easiest job in the world by alienating and mistreating them, as well as efforts by a buddy of Sullivan's to subpoena The Harvard Crimson in violation of its and our First Amendment rights.

We'll leave those hanging and focus just on Sullivan's claim, made in The New Yorker, that somehow the right of a Harvard Professor to profit from representing a rich asshole is part of their academic freedom:  “But from the vantage point of a professor and administrator, you also have to insure that the university is a space where multiple ideas can exist and that other students aren’t silenced.”

Wait, you say, what does making big bucks moonlighting for sex offenders have to do with academic freedom?  If you don't know the answer, brother, then you didn't go to Harvard.

Wait a minute.  We did.  And using our well-honed research skills (one internet page), we found Harvard's interpretation of what academic freedom means:

All members of the University have the right to press for action on matters of concern by any appropriate means. The University must affirm, assure and protect the rights of its members to organize and join political associations, convene and conduct public meetings, publicly demonstrate and picket in orderly fashion, advocate and publicize opinion by print, sign, and voice.

Do you see in that list the right to bill $1,000 an hour to malign the victims of your client's depredations while at the same time holding yourself out to undergraduates as their advocate and their protector from similar misdeeds?

We don't either.

We do understand that Prof. Sullivan, who continues to hold and get paid for his tenured position at Harvard Law School, feels that he has been unjustly tarred by unfair accusations of powerful persons with evil intentions.

Persons in that position say it feels awful.  Like Harvey Weinstein's victims. 

News from Zontar: President Takes Credit for Great Civil War Victory

Editors' Note: Every so often the Spy's Deep Space Desk receives a transmission from the planet Zontar in the Remulac galaxy millions of light years away from Earth.  Sometimes the dispatches are delayed for centuries, which only adds to their piquancy.  Although the practices and lives of these strange creatures bear no resemblance to us Earthlings, nevertheless we present some of the news of this distant planet so that we can realize just how protean is life in our Universe and how remarkable [They get the setup already – Ed.]

PRESIDENT TAKES CREDIT FOR GREAT UNION VICTORY ------------------------- Hails New National Cemetery and Trump Golf Resort at Gettyzburg Battle Site ----------------------- By Telegraph to The New Zork Times GETTYZBURG, Penn. – President Donald Z. Trump today dedicated a new war cemetery on the site of the recent Battle of Gettyzburg today, telling the assembled crowd that “thanks to your favorite President, me of course, we are building the most fabulous, greatest, biggest cemetery that people tell me will be the most beautiful in the world.” The President spent several hours describing the luxury golf resort that would be built adjacent to the cemetery by his real estate development company, the Trump Trust, headed by his children.  “The golfers will have the best views of the cemetery from the course so that they can enjoy the wonderful graves as they play on our championship quality course,” he promised. Responding to Congressional criticism that it is inappropriate for a private individual to profit from a national cemetery and battle site, he called those critics “stone-cold losers and total disasters.” The President's spirited defense of his Trust's project cast a shadow over what had been intended as a non-partisan commemoration of the recent battle, in which more than 3,000 Union soldiers died and another 20,000 were wounded, captured or missing. The President hailed what he termed the “very fine” soldiers on both sides, passing up on what his supporters had hoped would be a clear exposition of Union war aims in the aftermath of the bloody encounter. Departing from his prepared remarks, the President said, “Imagine what it was like to go into battle that day.  The weather might have been good, but sometimes it can get hot.  Believe me, it can get hot.  Maybe hotter than anyplace else.  That's what a lot of people are saying.” He attributed the Union Army's success to his efforts to “build the finest military in the world.  No one loves the Union Army more than I do.  All my Generals say that I am the best President ever for the Army.  I hear that all the time.” Instead of restating the Union's war aims, the President said that he would be willing to talk to Confederate President Robert Z. Lee at any time without preconditions, commenting: “You have to admire President Lee.  He's a strong leader.  Lots of slaves.  And when they step out of line, they get a good whipping.  That's how you build a country.  Hey, it's a tough part of the world.” After the speech, he said he actually referred to the President of the Confederacy Jefferson Daviz and any claims to the contrary were “fake news from the failing New Zork Times.” In conclusion, the President predicted that the world will “long remember the words I say here because I have the best words and I am a very stable genius.  No one has better words than me.  A lot of people are thanking me for my good words.” Those who expected the President to remember the fallen were bitterly disappointed.  Colonel Abraham Zincoln, who led the 44th Illinois Volunteers in bloody battle at Little Zound Top, said to no one in particular, “Can you believe this asshole?”

Profiles in Courage, revised edition

By Isaiah Thomas
Editorial Board with
Francis X. Morrissey in Boston

Since we aren't invited out to much of anything anymore, other than free lunches at the Chateau in Waltham to learn about the great opportunities just waiting for us in Bitcoins, we were surprised to hear about a recent gala at the Kennedy Library.  We remembered vaguely that they hand out a Profile in Courage Award every year, but we almost choked on our Pop-Tart when we saw this in The Boston Globe:

Say what?

At the risk of agreeing with loathsome reactionary Jeff Jacoby (no link, f*** this guy), we have to ask what she has done to exhibit courage, whether in profile or full-face.

If you hadn't noticed, and since most of you don't read a real newspaper, you may very well haven't, the House of Representatives is now confronting what to do with a corrupt President who has committed by our count 121 impeachable offenses, at least 10 of which were set forth in excruciating detail in the Special Counsel's report.

And how has Madame Speaker responded to this ongoing demolition of our Constitution?  If you guessed by commencing an orderly proceeding involving testimony, evidence, and expert legal advice to determine if impeachment is warranted then you win an award, but not for courage.

Instead, she has slow-walked any effort to open such hearings on the grounds that the 53 spineless hypocritical Republicans in the Senate wouldn't convict anyway.  It's hard to fault her prediction based on facts on the ground today but to quote that Constitutional scholar Yogi Berra, predictions are hard, especially about the future.

Instead of convening an impeachment inquiry that would fail in the Senate, she's proposing legislation that would – you guessed it, fail in the Senate:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is spearheading a new oversight strategy that will include legislative fixes meant to hold Trump accountable for his actions as president that will be rolled out as soon as next week. Democratic aides from several committees met over the Memorial Day recess to discuss legislation that will address “Trump’s abuses and safeguard our democracy from future attacks,” according to a leadership aide.

A number of rationales have been offered by Pelosi and her apologists for doing everything they can to wriggle out of the evident necessity of impeaching a corrupt disloyal obstructor of justice and subverter of our Constitutional order, beyond the fact that the necessary 20 Republican Senators have not yet agreed to convict.

First we are told that the House needs to get “all the facts” before it commences a formal impeachment inquiry, which of course is the vehicle to get all the facts.  The analogue to the criminal justice system is that the House Judiciary Committee acts as a sort of grand jury, pulling together the evidence and making a recommendation.  Now prosecutors don't go to the grand jury until they've got a pretty good idea of where the bodies are buried and who put them there, but in this case the House has a 448-page summary of the evidence to date, at least in the area of obstruction.  (The report doesn't reach other impeachable offenses like violations of the Emoluments Clause and doesn't fully exhume all of the financial and other contacts between U Bum and his Kremlin handlers, all of which could be covered in impeachment hearings).

We are also told that if the Senate won't convict, then U Bum will take his acquittal by the Senate as as an exoneration.  Therefore,  goes the argument, it would be better not even to begin the process by convening hearings because of course U Bum will not spin the Democrats' craven refusal to do so as exoneration.  If that makes sense to you, then I'm happy to give you an award, although not for courage.

Finally, as a variation of these arguments, we are told that impeachment should not be commenced in the absence of a bipartisan consensus, although that didn't stop the 1998 Republican lynch mob from handing Lindsay Graham the rope.

The way to build a broader base of support for impeachment is to take over live TV with riveting testimony, as was done successfully in 1974.  We actually think that U Bum may not wait that long and should his packed Supreme Court not quash the subpoena, will pardon himself and head out for the territories as soon as he is forced to turn over his financial records.

What's really going on of course is that the memory of losing her majority in 2010 is seared in Nancy Pelosi's memory.  She will do whatever it takes to avoid a repeat in 2020, and if that means keeping her fledgling Democrats in purple districts from taking a, um, courageous vote, then it's a small price to pay.

We think that you could protect these delicate flowers by simply beginning hearings led by expert counsel in the Judiciary Committee to review evidence of Presidential misconduct and leave the i-word for a later date.  But you have to make it clear that you are committed to a relentless process of fact gathering.

We suspect that the spectacle of Mueller reciting his report's conclusions, McGahn speaking to U Bum's efforts to fire Mueller, and Li'l Grifter smirkingly taking the Fifth might well move public opinion.  In any case, that's the kind of political risk you have to take if you want to be considered a Profile in Courage.

Now we know that even the named author of Profiles in Courage didn't always live up to the standard he set in areas as diverse as civil rights and Vietnam.  But sometimes he did, like when he told his Joint Chiefs he did not intend to start a nuclear war in Cuba.  Anyone alive in 1962 owes Jack Kennedy a perpetual debt of gratitude.

Speaking of Kennedys and courage, by the way, his grand nephew Joe Kennedy III has made a bit of a name for himself as the Congressman for the Fourth Congressional District in Massachusetts, one of those districts that in Pelosi's demeaning phrase would elect a glass of water if it had a D next to it.

How's his profile in courage?  Sadly, scarcely better than Pelosi's.  His office told the Spy last week that he hasn't addressed impeachment since 2017.  His standard response to constituents could be summarized as homina-homina-homina.

It's beginning to look like there's no need for an updated version of Profiles in Courage, no matter how many nice dinners they throw at the Kennedy Library.

Journalism for beginners, Middle East crisis edition

By A.J. Liebling
Meta-Content Generator

It's Memorial Day weekend and any real pundit has scored a weekend in the Hamptons or the Eastern Shore, leaving behind the young tyros to generate enough conventional wisdom to tide us over until the next international disgrace created by President U Bum.  And the results aren't too good.  Poor Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation had to grapple with the Iran disinformation being peddled by those seasoned liars and warmongers, John “Bomb Iran” Bolton and Mike Pompeo.

As you might have expected, Iran disinformation won.  Her nominal task was to interview Beto O'Rourke.  To her credit she began not with horse race crap about why he hasn't “broken through” only what 14 months before the Democratic nominee is chosen.  Instead, she smoothly channeled U Bum Administration talking points about the imminent threat posed by Iran.  She asked Beto how the US should respond to the “Iran threat.”

What Iran threat?  When did Iran become a threat to the United States?  Do you believe that Iran is a threat to the United States?  Why?  Has Iran sent an aircraft carrier task force to patrol 15 miles off Long Island within sight of your cocktail party?  Of course Beto said, as any sentient being would, that he didn't believe that Iran did pose a threat to the US.

But Ms. Brennan, stuck in sweltering Washington D.C., persisted.   She referred to scary “US intelligence” suggesting that Iran was a threat to US forces in Iraq.  By the way, wtf are US forces doing in Iraq?  Can anybody tell us?

Margaret Brennan smoothly channeled U Bum talking
points about the Iran crisis. [Photo interns, does this
look right? – Ed.]

Are they in danger?  You bet your brand new beach Tevas they are.  Iraq is in fact a dangerous stew of Shi'ite militias and disgruntled Sunnis who continue to struggle against Shi'ite oppression, as indeed has been the case since the US created this toxic mess in 2003.  Are some of these militias ready, willing, or able to take shots at US forces to advance their own narrow agendas?  Uh, yes.  Are some of these militias influenced by one or more factions based in Iran?  Again, given the close ties between the two Shi'ite regimes, yes again.

Is this news?  No it isn't.  But you don't have take our word for it.  Just ask this well-known terrorist sympathizer and sad, weak, pathetic Nancy Pelosi stooge: 

Earlier Tuesday, British Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika, a senior commander of allied troops in Iraq, told reporters there has been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria.

You mean you'd believe a dispassionate observer with access to relevant intelligence over U Bum kissers and long-time prevaricators Bolton and Pompeo?   Well, lady, you can kiss that anchor slot at Face the Nation good bye!

At any rate, we took pity on Margaret Brennan and her fellow hacks toiling away in lonely newsrooms whilst their bosses were limbering up on the tennis courts of Martha's Vineyard.  To make their job even easier, the Spy created an all-purpose Iran threat story that you can make for yourself from things you have lying around the house, like the same f***ing story from the lead up to the Iraq War in 2002.   Just choose the words that work best for you.  You'll have your piece filed before you can say Judith Miller!

US RESPONDS TO INCREASING THREATS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Washington, D.C. – Administration officials vowed to respond forcefully to increasing threats posed by [Iraq/Iran/Nancy Pelosi].  Appearing on the Sunday talk shows [State Department official/National Security Adviser/pathological liar] John Bolton said that reliable intelligence proved that [Iran was putting rockets on boats/Iraq was building mobile biological warfare vans/Pete Buttigieg was a deserter].

Bolton promised that the United States response would be strong and warlike.  He said the President had authorized sending [B-52 bombers to the Persian Gulf/an additional 20,000 troops to Kuwait/boatloads of bone saws to Saudi Arabia].

Speaking on conditions of anonymity, senior US officials [accompanying the National Security Adviser/living inside John Bolton's suit/living inside John Bolton's head] said that unless [Iraq/Iran/Jerry Nadler] changed its aggressive stance, war was inevitable.

Republicans on Capitol Hill echoed the Administration's concerns.  Sen. Lindsey Graham said that the United States faced no greater threat than [Saddam Hussein/the Iranian mullahs/videotapes of him advocating impeaching President Clinton].  

But it appears that the Administration may not be able to count on support of its European allies in any use of force in the Persian Gulf.  Reaction in European capitals was skeptical with foreign government sources telling [your current employer] [What is this shit?/Was ist dieses Scheiss?/Quelle merde].

However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed firm support for the Administration's position saying, “We have always been at war with [Iraq/Iran/the Criminal Code of Israel].”

Pentagon sources have cautioned that military action may be long and protracted.  Sources close to the Joint Chiefs of Staff have said privately that Bolton doesn't have a grip on what it would mean to send US forces into harm's way in the Persian Gulf.  As one highly-placed senior officer said, “[Sure, we can get to Baghdad, but then what?/Look at f**in' Iran on a map and tell me how this would work/Take the guns, drop the war].”

But Bolton and Pompeo maintain that war in the Persian Gulf would be brief and decisive.  Said Bolton: “[Iraq wars are good and easy to win/All we need to do is bomb 83 million Iranians to death/Once the guns go off, it's not my problem anymore].”

As most of Washington enjoys the summer weather, one thing is clear: [The drums of war are beating ever louder/These schmucks don't have any idea of what they're doing/I told my agent if I don't get the Evening News I'm outta here.]

NY Times reporters struggle to combat new claims about their grisly behavior

By A.J. Liebling
Meta-content Generator

New York Times readers opened their newspapers this week to discover that they and everyone they knew were baby murderers:

With grisly claims that Democrats promote “birth day abortions” and are “the party of death,” the Republican Party and its conservative allies have aggressively reset the terms of one of the country’s most divisive and emotionally fraught debates, forcing Democrats to reassess how they should respond to attacks and distortions that portray the entire party as extremist on abortion.

Times reporters like Julie Davis (shown 
above) need to confront claims that
they enjoy beating and killing animals

It must have come as quite a shock to the credulous fools who pay over $1,300 a year for this type of “reporting.”  But even more shocking are the grisly claims about Times reporters who specialize in this type of breathless smear-repeating stenography, like the author of this piece, one Jeremy Peters.

Is Peters an honest and honorable reporter?  Let's aggressively reset the terms of the debate, shall we?  He's a perverted sicko who during his student days at the University of Michigan regularly cruised the farms of neighboring Saline, Michigan so that he could enjoy sexual relations with sheep, donkeys, and goats, often several at a time.

How is Jeremy Peters going to respond to grisly claims of bestiality?  Thus far, he's been unable to effectively rebut these attacks.

Nor is the only reporter in the Washington bureau whose credentials have been called into question by aggressive resets of the terms of the debate, wtf that means.  For example, Maggie “Thanks Dad” Haberman is now being forced to reassess claims that she skins puppies alive and requires interns to sew the skins together so she can wear them as a fur coat.

Julie Hirshfield Davis has thus far failed to refute claims that she pulls the wings off of butterflies for fun and ties tin cans to dog's tails.  Why not, Washington insiders ask.

But back to the abortion story filed by that old goat-fucker, Jeremy Peters.  When you read down to about paragraph 17 or so you find that the grisly Republican claims highlighted and repeated throughout the story are nothing more than a bad-faith load of bollocks:

As abortion rights supporters assess their current situation, many say they made an initial mistake by trying to answer questions based on implausible and often outright false premises.

Who would do that?  Why won't Peters tell us what he was doing in Saline, and why Fluffy the Goat has been so traumatized by his visit that she won't leave her pen?  Why won't Haberman let the Spy review the contents of her closet to determine if there is or is not a puppy-fur coat hanging in it?  And what's the deal with Maureen Dowd's leopard skin shoes – did she get the pelt from Donald Trump Jr.?  Or her “brother” Kevin?  Inquiring minds want to know!

According to bestiality practitioner Peters, these claims peddled by anti-abortion rights flacks are new and different.  But are they, or are they all, like goats, pretty much the same?

Here's how the discussion was framed a mere 40 years ago, before Peters set out on his career of rogering the animal kingdom:

Earlier in the day, at a news conference held by groups favoring legal abortion, Eleanor Smeal, president of the National Organization for Women, called for the two sides to meet and seek areas of common interest, such as birth control and family planning. But that offer was rejected by Nellie J. Gray, president of the March for Life organization, who said, “Pro‐life people will not negotiate with baby killers. They must stop killing babies forthwith.” The crowd exploded in a chant of “No compromise, no compromise” as a man in the front lines hefted black cross on which a plastic baby doll had been nailed.  (emphasis added)

So in fact there's no news here at all.  For decades, anti-abortion forces have felt free to call anyone who chose an abortion a murderer and those who supported them participants in genocide.  This slime preceded the current whining about the decline in civilized debate, perhaps because we have been so inured to this vile garbage that we take it as just another day at the clinic.

But it isn't.

Claims by these donkeys that they were sexually assaulted
by Jeremy Peters have reset the debate over journalism

The story is that the so-called “pro-life” movement, aided and abetted by the Republican Party, continues to lie their asses off in an effort to foment even more hate and resentment among white anti-abortion Evangelicals, as they have done without surcease since 1973.  The story might be whether these lies have in fact changing the polling on abortion, which apparently they haven't.

Indeed the sheep-ravisher's narrative is really no different from the Times's endless coverage of Her Emails.  Republican lies and smears were ventilated fully, and then Democrats condemned for not refuting them to the satisfaction of the puppy and butterfly murderers in the Washington Bureau.  Maybe just maybe if the Times and others hadn't reported bullshit as news, fewer people would have confused the two.

You could knit together 50 years of stories about the unspeakable smears pushed by the anti-abortion movement and their deeply moral allies, like the Pussy-Grabber-in-Chief (who asked his second wife to abort what became his daughter Tiffany), and it would make a pretty substantial coat, although to be fair it might not be as stylish as the cockapoo-fur job that Maggie Haberman loves so much.

The Spring Review of Unreadable Books: Deep Thinking Ahead. Wear your Boots.

Editors' Note:  It's been a long time since we picked up a book, what with one world championship after another.  But apparently the Hub of the Universe can't keep accreting banners without surcease, so it's time to think about something to read.  And if you're thinking about pitching your hammock and relaxing with a good book, we've got a couple of ideas about what to avoid.  Keep in mind that these books are not just bad – they are unreadable.  To be truly unreadable, a bad book must be capable of being understood fully and dismissed utterly without the need to turn even one page.  Like these.

The Right Side of History
by Ben Shapiro
Broadside
$27.99 already marked down to $18.29

Remember that obnoxious freshman who used to annoy you in the dining hall by droning on about the genius of philosophers he was reading for the first time (like you)?  But unlike you he had to impress everyone with how much he had gotten out of them and how he in his genius (and it was always a he, amirite?) had pulled out of his blowhole a majestic intellectual history of all things that he just couldn't shut up about?  And remember how the cute girl in your Ec 10 section overheard the little putz rambling on and immediately headed off to the other side of the dining hall?

Whatever happened to that guy?

One of two things: either he went into venture capital and made a fortune and married that cute girl, or he sucked up to enough rich reactionaries to bankroll a life of ease as a conservative gasbag.

Open Door No. 2 and you'll find Ben Shapiro.

He's going to jabber on about Plato and Aristotle and the “Judaeo-Christian” tradition (leaving out a third religion that belongs to that tradition and thanks to which the works of the ancient Greeks didn't perish in the Dark Ages of Christian Europe). He might even tell you that the Greek and the religious views of the world are basically the same thing, which is completely correct if you add one word (not).

Reb Shtickdreck did not have space to cover the
occasions when the Judeo and the Christian
traditions diverged, like the Christian
massacres of Jews during the Crusades

Then he's going to tell you that the rich tradition of slavery, pogroms, and burning women at the stake as witches is under assault by – you guessed it, liberals.

Why that is will be restated endlessly as if it were self-evidently true. Which it isn't.

And if you think that the installation in power and subsequent grotesque misconduct of the current President reflects or embodies those wonderful Greek and Judaeo-Christian traditions then either you don't understand those traditions or you agree that racism, misogyny, and corruption are essential parts of them.

We don't know which is a worse take, and we certainly don't intend to waste time or money to find out which one Reb Shtickdreck, self-proclaimed King of the Jews, chooses.

We do however have one suggestion for further research.  If he really doesn't understand why no Jew could possibly support the Tangerine-Faced Bigot and his relentless assault on immigrants and those fleeing persecution, maybe he should ask Maxwell House to send him a Haggadah.

▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬

The Second Wife [Surely, Mountain? – Ed.]: The Quest for a Moral Life
by David Brooks
Random House
$28, already marked down to $16.80


Speaking of self-proclaimed great minds, you'll be pleased to know that the World's Greatest Authority, David Brooks himself, is out with yet another waste of trees, this time telling us about the importance of faith and values.

According to Brooks, faith and values must be lived, not just professed.  That means each of us should dedicate their lives, or a good portion thereof, toward making the world a better place by combating racism, sexism, all other forms of bigotry, exploitation of labor, and the destruction of our fragile environment.

Nah, we're just bullsh-ting you.  For David Brooks, faith and values don't mean anything like that or indeed anything related to any coherent moral philosophy we've ever heard of.  They mean it's OK to dump your first wife for a dishier younger model and then lecture the wronged woman about how  to bear graciously the burden of being kicked to the curb.

Faith and values also mean to this dolt not wrestling with the imperfections of the world in which we live and helping other to do so. No, it means a life of soul-crushing narcissism and empty pontificating about “community” without doing one f***in' thing to build a community based on shared values like I don't know justice or fairness or whatever real ethical philosophers think about.

Of course, you can't expect a guy who tried to pass off Jordan Peterson as a serious thinker to be in possession of a well-magnetized moral compass, but you have to expect him to do something to pay off the alimony that his ungrateful ex-wife wormed out of him.  And writing unreadable sententious tomes is that some thing.

And by the way, don't tell Reb Shtickdreck, but Brooks's faith is no longer the religion into which he was born into and to which he made his first wife convert.  Now he, like fellow moral exemplar George W. Bush, has later in life acknowledged Jesus H. Christ as his Lord and Savior.

We truly live in an age of miracles.

From the Archives: The Folly of Impeachment

Editors' Note: We're hearing a lot of these days that impeaching Pres U Bum is a terrible idea because 67 Senators won't vote to convict or it's too distracting or the public doesn't support it.  We sent the interns down into Subbasement Level C to see if these concerns had any precedent in the history of the Republic.  And guess what they found?

August 6, 1972

(courtesy New York Times News Service)

Apparently a lot of folks in 1972 thought that impeaching the young, vibrant President Richard M. Nixon was a bad idea because he was protected by his “silent majority.”  (And indeed he won a smashing re-election victory four months after this was published.)

May 16, 1973

Even as late as the following spring, Senators, including representatives of that legendary extinct species, moderatus Republicanus, were telling the House not to push impeachment:

Senator Jacob K. Javits, Republican of New York, and Senator Abraham Ribicoff, Democrat of Connecticut, both deplored here Monday any talk of impeachment of President Nixon in the wake of the Watergate disclosures, while endorsing measures “to get to the bottom of the matter.”

“This isn't a lynching party —as Senators, we all have an obligation to keep our heads even if others are losing theirs,” Senator Ribicoff said  . . .

“I see no evidence that warrants even talk of impeachment,” Senator Ribicoff said. “By tossing the word around before there is any hard evidence that the President is involved, we do a disservice to the American system of justice.”

He said impeachment would be “a shattering experience for the country.” Senator Javits, who was co‐chairman of the hearing, agreed and added:

“Watergate, is hurting us everywhere in the world, and if we ourselves pour gasoline on the fire it won't help. The President can govern effectively only if we realize that we are dismantling our Government by reckless talk of impeachment.”

Spoiler alerts: There was evidence, impeachment didn't shatter the country, and the President couldn't govern effectively because he was a crook.

 June 3, 1973

She's utterly forgotten now but half a century or more ago Clare Boothe Luce was widely venerated in conservative circles as a clever writer and polemicist for the cause – like a female Bill Buckley or a snitty Nicole Wallace. Her pitch on the Times op-ed page was that the Democrats were playing games by not moving immediately to impeach Tricky Dick (perhaps because she knew or at least suspected that the more evidence that was developed, the worse it would be for her boy) :

Everyone who has a shred of pride in his country, who cares more than just a snap of his fingers for its prestige in the world; everyone who doesn't want to see the economy go to pot and our foreign relations endangered; everyone, in short, who is not covered with the malodorous Watergate mud or the feculent smell of partisanship politics wants Watergate to end. But it will not end—it cannot end—until the truth about the President is known.

There are many just and patriotic men in the Democratic party. Now is the time for them to tell their fellow Democrats that the degradation of a President is not a thing to be enjoyed or leisurely licked like an all‐day sucker. The Democratic strategy (as revealed by The Washington Post) of letting the investigation drag on and on and on for partisan gain is an abomination only a little less lawful than the Watergate horror.

A careful step-by-step inquiry was an abomination?  In her defense, Lindsay Graham would agree with her.  To be fair, though, he would probably argue based on his own example that a corrupt Republican President is indeed something to be leisurely licked like an all-day sucker.

June 13, 1973

The following week, a Times dispatch treated readers to that evergreen, Dems in Disarray (emphasis added):

Even among the six liberal Democrats speaking tonight, there was wide disagreement over what steps should be taken.

Representative Patricia Schroeder of Colorado proposed that the House leadership push through a resolution urging the President to testify before the Senate's special Watergate investigation committee, which is now conducting hearings.

. . . .

While cautioning against immediate impeachment proceedings, Mrs. Schroeder said that the President's only chance for restoring confidence in his Administration was to submit to questioning by the Senate panel.

Representative Fortney H. Stark of California also cautioned against immediate impeachment proceedings, but suggested that Government investigators be required to give the House “all information necessary to make a responsible decision” on whether there were grounds for impeachment.

Others participating in the discussion  . . .were critical of the President and his White House aides but made no proposals for House action.

Mrs. Abzug conceded that some members of the House regarded the possible impeachment of a President as “unthinkable.” But she added that, while it might be tempting to delay, the need for a House inquiry into whether there were grounds for impeachment was essential if the House was to discharge its duties.

. . . .

While talk about impeachment appears to have become more widespread in the House in the last few weeks, there are corresponding efforts to keep such moves in check.

. . .Representative Fred B. Rooney, Democrat of Pennsylvania, told the House that any suggestions for possible impeachment “are premature.” He urged his colleagues to “wait until all the evidence is in.”

Representative Hugh L. Carey, Democrat of Brooklyn, said earlier today that the House should devote its time to coping with such problems as the economy, foreign policy, domestic social programs and American involvement in Southeast Asia.

House Speaker Carl Albert of Oklahoma has also said in recent weeks that talk about possible impeachment was “premature.”

Why Democrats could not cope with an impeachment inquiry and the economy, foreign policy, domestic social programs and the three Nixonian Wars in Asia was not explained, but in Hugh Carey's defense, no gasbag of the current day has been asked to defend this ridiculous position either.

May 13, 1973

This doesn't strictly have to do with impeachment, but our interns as a bonus found late lamented Elliott Richardson firmly endorsing blatantly unconstitutional Presidential action:

Elliot Richardson, who is now crossing the Potomac from the Pentagon to the Justice Department, says as Secretary of Defense that the Administration will go on bombing in Cambodia if it chooses to do so, regardless of whether Congress votes it the money to do so. It will get the money some other way, he suggests.

Now we know who inspired Establishment Republican and committed institutionalist Billy Barr.

July 24, 1973

By summer, as evidence of Nixon's continuing obstruction of justice mounted, the Congress still did – not much:

George Bush [The name is familiar – Ed.], chairman of the Republican National Committee, also expressed confidence that the President would “fully expose” the entire story.  Mr. Bush defended the President's decision in refusing to disclose tapes of his “private and highly confidential talks with some of his closest aides” and said he felt the people would agree with that decision.

“The President knows the main thing the people want is to get this matter fully disclosed and put to bed,” Mr. Bush continued. “But he is acutely aware of his long‐term constitutional responsibility, Thank Heavens.”

Senator Robert Dole of Kansas . . . was less confident than Mr. Bush that the American people would understand the President's refusal. “I think he was legally right, but I don't think the American people will understand that,” the Senator said. “They want to believe the President, but I just don't know how much longer the people will wait.”

Senator Dole appeared to reflect the view of many in Congress that the key factor in determining where the Water gate affair may lead is public reaction.

“Until public opinion shifts dramatically to loud cries for impeachment, it's not likely there will be a serious move here in the House,” [Representative John C. Culver of Iowa] said.(emphasis added)

As we all know, or at least those of us who lived through it or read about it, public opinion (at that time only 24% approved of impeachment) shifted, and there was a serious move in the House.

But that couldn't happen again, could it?