[From Mearsheimer & Walt’s rebuttal of critiques of their original paper]
[…] Readers will also note that [Daniel] Pipes does not deny that his organization, Campus Watch, was created in order to monitor what academics say, write and teach, so as to discourage them from engaging in open discourse about the Middle East.
Ah, right — by actually reading what academics write and (horrors) passing it on to others, Pipes is discouraging open discourse. When did leftists and academics become so ashamed of what they do that they stopped being able to bear it being in the open?
Perhaps the key moment in the descent happened last February in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton. Fitzgerald was there, along with the Libby defense team.
Libby’s lawyers had asked Fitzgerald to produce evidence that Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert agent at the CIA. They had also asked for an assessment of the damage, if any, caused by the exposure of her identity.
In papers filed with the court, Fitzgerald refused both requests. Now, in the courtroom, Judge Walton wanted to hear Fitzgerald’s reasons.
“Does the government intend to introduce any evidence that would relate to either damage or potential damage that the alleged revelations by Mr. Libby caused, or do you intend to introduce any evidence related to Ms. Wilson’s status and whether it was classified or she was in a covert status or anything of that nature?” Walton asked.
“We don’t intend to offer any proof of actual damage,” Fitzgerald said. “We’re not going to get into whether that would occur or not. It’s not part of the perjury statute.”
[…]
“We are trying a perjury case,” Fitzgerald said. “If she turned out to be a postal driver mistaken for a CIA employee, it’s not a defense if you lie in a grand jury under oath about what you said.”
Perhaps, though, it should have some influence on whether one is called up before a grand jury.
HARVARD University has a bizarre idea of how to advance the education of its grads: Instruct them to bow down to North Korea’s paranoid dictators and show proper “respect” for the Axis of Evil.
It’s the ultimate in radical Stalinist chic - the Harvard Alumni Association’s $636-a-night totalitarian luxury tour of a rogue nation where thousands are deliberately starved to death.
“Demonstrations of respect for the country’s late leader, Kim Il Sung, and for the current leader, Kim Jong Il, are important,” instructs the Harvard Alumni Association’s tour memo.
“You will be expected to bow as a gesture of respect at the statue of Kim Il Sung and at his mausoleum.”
The question always remains, what do these people get out of things like this? Is it really just the vicarious thrill of being close to someone living out their own fantasies?