My most recent posting on "That Notorious Buckley AIDS Column" produced a torrential response, including some wild attacks on me threatening to beat me up and even sue me if I didn't take the post down. My intention was to keep the post up for a day or so, but when I saw this response, I decided to let it stay up through the weekend. Some of my critics are real goons, and it's important to teach these thugs a lesson in free speech.

Besides, what were they getting so hysterical about? I got the idea for the post by reading responses to my Buckley eulogy on the occasion of his death. All I did was tell the full story about the famou Buckley AIDS column, reporting how it came about, what the reaction was, and giving an accurate account of a subsequent National Review contest about the column. My own account of Buckley's article was not uncritical, and to the degree that the humor was offensive the culprits were Buckley himself and his associate Jeff Hart. Yet I took the brunt of the abuse.

A little secret about me: I enjoy this stuff. When I was editor of the Dartmouth Review we used to tell the deans that taking on our student newspaper was like wrestling with a pig: not only did it get everyone dirty, but the pig liked it! I guess my Dartmouth experience has made me a little thin-skinned with regard to a certain type of attack. I always try to learn from intelligent criticism, but when I get outright obscenity and threats and name-calling, I sit by my swimming pool with a drink in my hand and laugh my head off.

Some of my pals who read this blog do periodically ask why some of my critics are so out of control. One of my friends even printed out a bunch of responses to my recent posts, handing me a sampling. I reproduce a few items to give you the flavor.

"Dinesh you should be executed."

"Dear Dick (I mean Dinesh)"

"We are stupid if we let this sand n*gg*r speak for us. Go home."

"This guy is a friggin' dot head."

"Hypocritical jerkoff."

"Go back to India you narrow-minded punk. You don't have a f*ck*ng clue, bitch."

"You have sh*t for brains. You are a moron too."

"I f*ck*ng hate the way Dinesh uses that stupid voice...I want to punch him in the face."

"Oh Double D (that stands for Double Douchebag by the way)"

"Dinesh is far and away the dumbest human being on this planet."

"It's asshole immigrants like Dineshit, an untouchable from India is why I am against immigration."

"Self-absorbed cretin."

"You only need to take a look at Dinesh ato know something is wrong with him. He is the quintessential little ugly deformed fascist. Weird lower lip, sticks straight out, weird pink ledge. Goofy ears. Little weird looking fascist nerd with a barren intellect and an even more despitable soul."

"I hope you die. What a piece of crap."

"The only rational response is for me to tell you are that you are simply full of sh*t and need to pull your head out of your ass."

I've been examining these comments for valid criticisms. Maybe I am a little self-absorbed, although my critics seem far more absorbed with me than I am. Hypocrisy I plead guilty to: it simply means that I have higher standards than I can live up to. I have never claimed to be a handsome guy, although through some stroke of luck I managed to marry a woman who looks like a model: maybe she is partially blind. I doubt I am the dumbest human being on the planet although I may be--a) the dumbest guy to graduate Phi Beta Kappa from an Ivy League college, b) the dumbest guy to serve in his mid-twenties in the White House, c) the dumbest guy to have taught at Harvard and served as a scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, d) the dumbest guy to have written five New York Times bestsellers. Sometimes I wonder what I might have accomplished if I was a little smarter.

Now let's turn to these critics. It's striking that the cultural left, which wears the public face of tolerance and openness, quickly drops this cover when it's orthodoxies are questioned. Suddenly ad hominem epithets fly, and the intolerance and outright bigotry that is supposed to be the province of the right is quickly exposed as a distinctive feature of the secular left. I suspect that these folks are used to hanging out with people who share their political and cultural assumptions. They are not used to having these assumptions questioned. Unable to counter with facts and arguments, their only weapons are epithets and abuse. I have encountered this combination of left-wing and lowbrow on the campus, usually at second and third-rate universities. There occasionally I encounter a student who can do no better than yell "fascist" and run out of the room. In a way I feel sorry for him: his worldview has been shattered, and his abuse is simply an indication of the inner confusion he is experiencing.

To my friends and fans who keep encouraging me: No need to tell me to keep my chin up. It's already up. In fact, I feel blessed to have such irrational invective hurled at me. As long as my critics continue to reveal themselves as mean-spirited, foul-mouthed racists, how can I possibly lose the argument? Indeed such reactions from such people tell me that I must be doing something right.

Responding to my eulogy to William F. Buckley, some readers noted that Buckley had written a notorious column during the 1980s calling for AIDS victims to be tattooed on their rear ends. For one responder this was eerily reminiscent of Nazi policies.

Actually Buckley was no Nazi. On one occasion Buckley appeared on a late-night program with the writer Gore Vidal, and Vidal accused Buckley of being a "crypto-Nazi." Incensed, Buckley called Vidal a "goddamn queer." Both men ended up suing the other. Buckley won his case, because he was able to show that his opinions were never sympathetic to the Nazis, "crypto" or otherwise. Vidal lost his case, because, well, truth is an effective defense in a libel case.

So what about that AIDS column? Let's remember that not much was known about AIDS in the early 1980s. In particular, there were competing theories about how AIDS was actually transmitted. Little more was known than the fact that AIDS seemed to be concentrated in the homosexual community.

Buckley noted in his column that in previous epidemics, such as the syphilis epidemic of the early part of the twentieth century, America quarantined people who contracted the disease. Buckley argued against quarantining victims of AIDS. Somewhat light-heartedly, he suggested that a better alternative might be to have some insignia warning off potential partners. He came up with the admittedly strange idea of a small tattoo on the AIDS victim's rear end. Not surprisingly, the column caused immediate controversy.

At National Review, however, the controversy was of a different sort. The big question that arose among the editors was not whether there should be a tattoo but rather what the tattoo should say. Several entries were submitted, and the contest winner was my own English professor Jeffrey Hart, a senior editor of the magazine, who proposed the line emblazoned on the entrance gate to Dante's Inferno: "Abandon all hope ye who enter here."

George Packer of the New Yorker finds that George Bush just had the best week of his presidency. Packer, a fierce critic of the administration, found four things to like about Bush's recent performance -- his strengthening of sanctions on Sudanese companies, his request that Congress double funding for global AIDS programs, his decision to have diplomat Ryan Crocker meet with an Iranian diplomat, and his criticism of conservative critics of the pending immigration reform legislation.

The first two actions are consistent with a humanitarian spirit that has long-animated the Bush administration. For example, the president has frequently called for significant increases in the funding of global fight against AIDS, as in his 2003 State of the Union address when he proposed a tripling of such assistance. Indeed, I've been told (off-the-record) by leaders in humanitarian efforts on behalf of Africa, that Bush has been the best friend that continent has ever had in the White House. I guess it took Bush's negotiations with Iran and bashing of conservatives for Packer to notice.

Packer doesn't explain why he thinks the meeting between Ryan Crocker and an Iranian diplomatic was a good idea. Perhaps this view is well enough entrenched in certain precincts of Manhattan that it requires no defense. In my view, though, the meeting signaled U.S. weakness at a time when Iran needs to see signs of strength. President Kennedy once said, "let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate." I suspect that Bush authorized Crocker's get-together out of deference to the State Department, not fear. However, it's unlikely the Iranians will perceive it that way. Here is a fuller discussion of why Bush erred in agreeing to these negotiations.

Finally, Packer is delighted that Bush attacked "the demagoguery of right-wing critics" of his immigration reform package. Packer fails to explain what is demagogic about conservative criticism of the 400 page legislation -- this looks like another instance in which Manhattan orthodoxy substitutes for analysis. As I argue here, the administration's criticism is not justified.

President Bush probably takes no comfort in knowing that if he demonizes those who normally support him, he can get half a good word (Packer's praise is full of enough caveat to maintain his standing in Manhattan) from one member of the liberal intelligentsia. If Bush does, he should read the rest of Packer's piece in which he endeavors to consign the Bush presidency to the dust-bin of history. That effort will be the subject of my next post.

The old catch phrase used to be, "Show me the money!" I like Gisele's variation of that, "Show me the virgins!"

Here's the Reuters article that has her direct quotes.



















www.theyoungturks.com

So a terrifically talented and big-hearted impresario named Jamie McGonnigal has put together a concert of Broadway stars singing 80s songs - all to benefit a team of U.S. youth ambassadors who are going to Africa to build schools and dormitories in AIDS-affected areas. I'm trading on my VH1 "I Love the 80s" bona fides to host this event. (Just for the record, I did not love everything about the 80s. Two things I hated: "Archie Bunker's Place" and Apartheid.)

More information is below.

Jamie McGonnigal and Joe's Pub present Broadway Loves the 80's, a concert featuring your favorite Broadway stars singing their favorite hits of the awesomest decade ever!