Holocaust deniers, cow flatulence, and Alan Dershowitz’s rocky rehabilitation
FOTP News in Review for … February 24
Bothsiderism, party of Alan, your table is ready.
Deborah Lipstadt, author of “Denying The Holocaust: The Growing Assault On Truth And Memory” and a professor of history at Emory University, has had it with Holocaust deniers — meaning she’s done talking to them, done debating them. And she’s done, she says, because to engage with such lunatics is to confer legitimacy on an evil fiction solely based on their anti-semitism.
When someone makes an outrageous claim even though they may hold one of the highest offices in the land, if not the world, we must say to them, where’s the proof? Where’s the evidence? We must hold their feet to the fire. We must not treat it as if their lies are the same as the facts. Truth and fact are under assault. The job ahead of us is great. The time to fight is short. We must act now.
Which, believe it or not, brings us to John Oliver.
On a show in 2014, he concluded by wondering, if 97 percent of peer-reviewed scientific papers take one position on the certainty of global warming, while the remaining 3 percent deny it, why media outlets treat and stage the debate with one person representing the majority and one representing the minority? What Oliver did next to illustrate the point was brilliant: He brought out, count ’em, 97 scientists to the studio to indicate the absurdity of treating the issue as if the scientific community was still up in angst about it.
Which, believe it or not, brings us to Alan Dershowitz and his appearance on ABC’s This Week
The former Harvard Law Professor was on along with Dan Abrams, chief legal analyst for the network, to debate the forthcoming release (we’re told, anyway) of the Mueller report and, yes, the White House response to it, which is a little like inviting Neil Diamond to The Band’s “Last Waltz.”
For starters, and to his credit, Dershowitz was, once again, sane — if still insufferable — and no longer sounding like the perkiest cheerleader in a pleated skirt and a letter sweater who is furiously shaking his pom pons at Donald Trump’s opponents.
DERSHOWITZ: Well I think that’s exactly the issue, Democrats who are appropriately furious, I was among them when Comey, after saying that he was not going to indict Hillary Clinton then went on to give his own opinion as to her wrongdoing.
And the question is is there a difference between Comey, who did wrong, everybody now acknowledges that, and a special counsel of who has had a broader mandate to investigate. Look, let’s be realistic, in the end everything’s going to come out, there are no secrets.
From your mouth to Kavanaugh’s ears.
The train then started swaying a little, but it was still making contact with the track.
DERSHOWITZ: In the end, it’s all going to come out and in the end, as I’ve said from day one, it would have been so much better if we had a non-partisan independent commission like they have in England and in Israel, like we had after 9/11, getting to the whole truth in a non-partisan way. The American public’s not going to trust Democratic control paths –
George Stephanopoulos didn’t like where this was going.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well let me — let me stop you on that –
DERSHOWITZ: — they’re not going to trust the Republican controlled Senate.
Okay, so Dershowitz is trying. Give him that. Stephanopoulos appreciated it, too— to a point.
STEPHANOPOULOS: I’ll take your point on the — on the Congress, but Robert Mueller was about as non-partisan of figures you could have found, isn’t he?
DERSHOWITZ: That’s the point, no that’s the point, no I think — but my point is if — if his information is not released to the public and it then goes to Congress to conduct the investigation, I think there’ll be a question of credibility.
It appears, then, that Dershowitz wants the full report released so the public can decide if the president broke the law. Good on him.
But watch what he does next.
Look I think, and I’ve said from day one that President Trump’s greatest vulnerability lies not with the Mueller report, but with the Southern District of New York and with the New York Attorney General’s Office and with other prosecutorial arms that can look into conduct unrelated to collusion to Russia, but conduct that preceded his presidency. And I think that’s where the problems can come up in — in the future. This may be just the beginning. The Mueller report may be just a roadmap given to Congress and given to other prosecutors that will continue these investigations until the end of President Trump’s first term.
The conduct that preceded his presidency is the tell. He didn’t add, and Stephanopolous didn’t press, whether Dershowitz thought that could (or should) be a particular problem for the president. But you get the sense if the issue had been pursued, Dershowitz would have maintained that as long as the transgressions were pre-presidency, Trump would have little to worry about — and certainly not a situation where he would face impeachment. All in all, though, Dershowitz, unlike his past performances on Sunday morning, dialed back the sycophancy to a larger measure.
And he was that close to getting out, but things started to unravel, just as the segment was wrapping up.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And we’re still waiting for Robert Mueller …
DERSHOWITZ: Let’s remember though …
STEPHANOPOULOS: Go ahead, quickly.
Oh, no. Don’t!
DERSHOWITZ: Let’s remember that indictments are different than — than convictions.
Here we go.
DERSHOWITZ: And a lot of this is indictments. And remember too, we’re going to see a rebuttal report from the Trump team. So I think the American public should withhold final judgment until they see both reports, the Mueller report and the …
Hold up, Hoss. You didn’t just equate the importance of the two reports, did you? You didn’t just equate what will certainly be a transparent, petulant and cherry-picked, hastily thrown-together White House report with the seriousness and month’s-long scope of the Mueller investigation, did you?
Dan Abrams seems to think so.
ABRAMS: This will be the first — the first time in the history of America where a defendant or someone is accused of something, gets to write a response report to what an indictment is — every criminal defendant in America would love to be able to write their own report about what they say happened. But that’s not the way the system works …
DERSHOWITZ: This is — but you’re contradicting yourself …
ABRAMS: How?
DERSHOWITZ: … Because this is not just a yes or no. You’re saying that special counsel have special obligations …
ABRAMS: Yes.
DERSHOWITZ: … To release everything. And if they have a special obligation to release everything, then there’s an obligation to allow a response.
ABRAMS: You can allow them to …
DERSHOWITZ: That’s precisely the point.
ABRAMS: … That’s fine. Let them respond.
DERSHOWITZ: If it was just yes or no, then you wouldn’t need a response. But if you get a long, long narrative, then fairness requires a response.
ABRAMS: That’s fine, let them …
DERSHOWITZ: And simultaneous release of both —
Oh, for the love of Ron Silver, Rudy Giuliani gets to rebut the Mueller findings in real time?
ABRAMS: Whoa, simultaneous release of both, too? So now — so now, basically …
DERSHOWITZ: Right. Yes.
ABRAMS: Look, that’s just — that’s ridiculous, the idea that you have to allow the other side, in something like this, the opportunity to file a long report in response to a prosecutor …
DERSHOWITZ: You don’t have to do that if you just limit yourself to indictment or not indictment but if you go beyond it and you start telling a story, the other side of the narrative has to be produced as well. That’s required by fairness and due process …
The other side of the narrative? Is that what we’re calling White House spin these days?
While the Muller Report will be the political equivalent of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rudy Giuliani will blame the current situation on the fact Elsie is farting too much.
Dershowitz used to be able to tell and appreciate such differences.
