Thursday, February 03, 2005

I'm a bit behind the curve on this story, and I may be making an obvious point, but here goes:

This is from "College Cancels Speech by Professor Who Disparaged 9/11 Attack Victims," New York Times, 2/2/05:

In his original essay, Mr. [Ward] Churchill wrote that the thousands killed at the World Trade Center had played a role in American sanctions on Iraq that "translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants."

"If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it," he wrote.


And this is from the Ann Coulter entry at wikiquote.org:

* "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building."

- in a
New York Observer interview, 26 August, 2002

On the previous quote:

* "Of course I regret it. I should have added 'after everyone had left the building except the editors and the reporters.'" - in a rightwingnews.com interview, 26 June, 2003


Is there any difference here? Any difference?

Both Ward Churchill and Ann Coulter have explicitly described terrorist mass murder of noncombatants as politically appropriate, because both, appointing themselves judge and jury, have concluded that those noncombatants are guilty of crimes worthy of death.

Churchill is not being allowed to make a scheduled campus speech. Ann Coulter makes speeches in college settings on a regular basis.

If you're affiliated with a university and Ann Coulter's coming to speak, don't say it's wrong because she's a hate-filled fascist with an overly prominent Adam's apple. Just quote her words and ask why the standard that's now being applied to Ward Churchill shouldn't be applied to her.

(And in case it isn't obvious, I'm not defending Churchill. He and Coulter probably ought to be paired up for eternity in Sartre's Hell.)

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