PRESSWATCH: 'Let's Just Say'
Taranto, James
HE BOSTON GLOBE'S ELLEN GOODMAN starts a recent column about global warming on a loopy note: On the day that the latest report on global warming was released, I went out and bought a...
...In this she is far from alone among the liberal left...
...But would they be "onapar"withpeoplewhodenytheHolocaustafterit has happened...
...Rep...
...he has no liberty of speech and cannot defend himself in print...
...In 2005 Sen...
...Wow, Ellen, thanks for sharing...
...They would be, to use Goodman's phrase, denying the future...
...When Roberts published his book, Kristallnacht was more than a year away...
...Becausethetheoryofglobalwarmingfitstooconvenientlywiththeirpre-existingpoliticalideologies.(Granted, conservative skeptics are vulnerable to that last criticismtoo...
...Liberal journalists are ever vigilant against conservative prejudices, and far more forgiving of prejudices they share...
...Roberts described what he witnessed as "a campaignofannihilation,"buthedidnotforetell the multiplication of its brutality in the ensuingyears.Hadhesomehowmanagedtodo so, he would be remembered as a prophet today, but he might well have looked like a crank at the time...
...That's only human...
...Because we are ignorant of the future, we can innocently misjudge it...
...Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaustdeniers,thoughonedeniesthepastand theotherdeniesthepresentandfuture...
...he cannot exhibit paintings or give concerts...
...he cannot teach in any educational institution...
...The substance of the book is alarming, although the tone is calm and detached--so much so that it is eerietoreadwiththeknowledgeofwhathappenedin the years after October 1937, when it was published...
...The upshot of them all is that the Jew is deprived of all opportunityforadvancementandisluckyifhecontrivesto scrapeabarelivingunmolestedbyBlackGuardsor Gestapo...
...Dick Durbin, describing claims that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had treated terrorist detainees harshly, said that if you read the allegations, "you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis...
...CharlieRangelofNewYorkhassaidtheIraqwar"isjust asbadasthesixmillionJewsbeingkilled...
...Soroslater acknowledged "a bad choice of words...
...and Joe Biden's maladroitdescriptionofBarackObamaasan"articulate" and "clean" African-American may well be forgotten by the time you read this, barely two months later...
...So let us be charitable...
...he cannot work in any public hospital...
...That seems hard to squarewithherimageasanauntlyoldladywhowrites ditzy columns about her shopping habits...
...But it is also a service to conservatives, who as a consequence are more circumspect about expressing their own prejudicesorappearingtobeprejudiced.Liberaldisinhibition, by contrast, allows major newspapers to publish such ugliness as Ellen Goodman's unthinking remark about Holocaust deniers...
...I lack the time, the inclination, and possibly the intellect to delve deeply into the science...
...he cannot vote or attend any political meeting...
...Above all, because I can't stand to be bullied...
...he cannot become a civil servant or a judge...
...J A M E ST A R A N T O There'sanenormousdifferencebetween doubtinganoutlandishprediction(even onethatcomestrue)anddenyingthe grotesquefactsofhistory...
...But a few paragraphslatershetriestomakeaseriouspointandends up making a serious moral and intellectual error: I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny...
...I don't have enough scientific knowledge to have anything like an authoritative opinion--but neither does Ellen Goodman, who bases her entire argument on an appealtoauthority,namelytheIntergovernmentalPanel on Climate Change...
...Because their demands to cast out all doubt seem antithetical to science, which is founded on doubt...
...One ten-page chapter is devoted to "The Present PlaceoftheJews...
...OK, an environmentally friendly, compact fluorescent light bulb...
...JamesTaranto is editor of OpinionJournal.com, the website of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page...
...Let's just say that they ought to be...
...he cannot enter the serviceoftherailway,theReichsbank,andmanyother banks...
...Let's just say that she is uninhibited about expressingherprejudicesandinsensateabouttrivializing the horrors of Nazi Germany...
...This writer is skeptical of global warming...
...My main aim," he explainedinthepreface,"wastosumuptheNewGermany without any prejudice (except that my general approachwasthatofademocraticindividualist...
...Ellen,maybeweshouldn't"justsay"it.Beforewe make a truly invidious comparison, let's think a bit, shall we...
...And whatisitbutanactofbullyingtodenythatthereisany roomforhonestdisagreement,toinsistthatthoseofuswho are unpersuaded are the equivalent of Holocaust deniers,thatwearenotmerelymistakenbutevil...
...he cannot be a writer or a publisherorajournalist;hecannotspeakoverthe radio;hecannotbecomeascreenactororanactor before Aryan audiences...
...Is Ellen Goodman a bully...
...AtthetimeRobertswrote,thepersecution of Jewish Germans was well under way: Atpresent,theGermanJewhasnocivilrights.He is not a citizen...
...HE BOSTON GLOBE'S ELLEN GOODMAN starts a recent column about global warming on a loopy note: On the day that the latest report on global warming was released, I went out and bought a light bulb...
...Most people probably wouldn't believe him...
...WhyamIskepticaloftheglobal-warmists'claims...
...Durbin, under pressure,apologizedtwice;Rangeldidnotbackdown...
...These comments all received far less aggressive coverage in the mainstream media than did the racial gaucheries of Trent Lott in 2002 and George Allen in 2006.Democratsgetoffeasierwhentheymakeracial gaffes, too...
...Alittleperspectivecanbefoundinabookfrom1937 called The House That Hitler Built, a 380-page study of NaziGermanywrittenbyStephenH.Roberts,aprofessorofmodernhistoryattheUniversityofSydney.Roberts spent 16 months in Germany and neighboring countries between 1935 and 1937...
...Let'sjustsaythatseemsastretch.There'sanenormous difference between doubting an outlandish prediction (even one that comes true) and denying the grotesque facts of history...
...It is a campaign of annihilation--a P R E S S W A T C H `Let'sJustSay' 5 2 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R A P R I L 2 0 0 7 Tby James Taranto A P R I L 2 0 0 7 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R 5 3 pogrom of the crudest form, supported by every Stateinstrument...
...the ghettos and death camps were further still in the future...
...Iwouldliketosaysheandhereditorscannothelp but be ashamed of themselves...
...Holocaust deniers are neither ignorant nor innocent (though extremelyignorantpeoplemayinnocentlyaccepttheir claims).Theyarefalsifyinghistoryforevilpurposes...
...WHICH BRINGS US BACK toEllenGoodman.Imagine if someone in 1937 had foreknowledge of the Holocaust and began sounding thealarms,describingindetailwhatwasgoingtohappen just a few years later...
...Because they speak with a certainty that is more reminiscent of religious zeal than of scientific inquiry...
...No doubt the same is true of Goodman...
...Harry Reid's baseless disparagement of Clarence Thomas's intelligence in 2005 did not cost him his Senate leadership post...
...he cannot enter the Labour Front or any of the professional organizations, although membership of many callings is restricted to members of these groups;hecannotevensellbooksorantiques....In addition to these, there are many other restrictions applying in certain localities...
...George Soros said earlier this year that America is in need of "de-Nazification...
Vol. 40 • April 2007 • No. 3
