I thought he won that appeal and made big bucks on the book and movie deals.

Exactly when I think the change began (I should have said, "Reversal of Ideology", but I was making reference to the book/movie, not what happened to his case).

It might be unfair of me to say so, since I haven't followed Dershowitz's career all that closely, but there seemed to be an inflection point there, where his conviction that even the rich and powerful deserved a fair defense subtly morphed into something else. That superficial impression has been reinforced by the public utterances of his that have caught my eye. I admit to selection bias, and the need for further elaboration. But his anti-tenure crusade against Finkelstein seems consistent.

Today we can look back on that period with a different, perhaps better, understanding of that period of history, and fascism in particular, but we are much farther removed from it than they were. Something about that movement made them speak of it in those terms.

It shouldn't provoke such controversy to do so, either, regardless of where that examination took us. But then, we are here in the land (blogistan I mean) of instant moral judgment as personal entertainment, where the subtle thinking required for such a thing is actively discouraged.

It may not have been any easier, in any previous point in history, to put oneself in the boots of other people living in difficult times and places, facing difficult choices with all their (honestly gotten) human imperfections, blindnesses and lack of access to information, and to try honestly and sympathetically to understand what it was like for them, and what led to the outcomes that are laid out for our easy consumption. It probably wasn't.

But we seem to have lost the interest or the will to do it, and that loss seems to have accelerated in just the past ten years.

Just an FYI ... Glenn's said in one of the recent discussions about post-deletion that nobody else does it but him (In that case, it was to reassure someone that their post had NOT been deleted). That's probably where Kitt's information came from.

Try this one, bubela

http://www.yiddishdictionaryonline.com

"My voles are dancing, but not without some torpor."

For some masochistic reason, I was over reading Joan Walsh's comments thread just now, which has continued to spiral down into something unbearable and deeply worrisome for what it portends, down the road.

Over here, you guys just demonstrated a great deal of low-key but exceedingly rare class in your rapproachment.

It's probably not a big deal to you, and I don't want this to sound somehow patronizing, but I just wanted to say thanks for setting a good example, and being decent human beings. I suspect we're going to need a lot more of that in the coming months/years ...

Un.Be.Lievable.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10649.html

“I still like and admire President Bush,” McClellan writes. “But he and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war. … In this regard, he was terribly ill-served by his top advisers, especially those involved directly in national security.”

What's next? Ari Fleisher publishing his secret diary about how he prayed for the feckless liberals to rise up and force Bush to give peace a chance?

you get some idiot who simply says over and over again "Disco sucks!!"

What if it's "Yes we can"?

a retired newspaper editor, and if you worked for me, you would have been roundly censured early on, if not fired.

How is it that a 'retired newspaper editor' doesn't understand that Joan's blog is an op-ed piece?

Other commenters seem to have a problem with this distinction, but given your claim of experience, you don't have that excuse.

How many op-ed writers did you mistakenly fire over the years, thinking they just handed in a GA story to the city desk ... ?

That was a nice post and I'm glad you shared it.

Unfortunately, you're wasting your energy on GThrasher, who is only here to stir up shit and draw attention to himself.

He's already been booted off Greenwald's blog for the same thing, a lot of inane faux-outraged nonsense, and he's just hiding here where the volume is higher and no one has caught on to his game.

I'm glad you posted anyway, just innoculating you against the inevitable disappointment at the response.