Ezra Klein writes :
TIME FOR ANOTHER LEFT-RIGHT ALLIANCE! Following up on the questions as to whether speech suppressed through perceived intimidation truly threatens free expression everywhere, I await the uproar over revelations that Abe Foxman and other prominent Jewish leaders “convinced” the Polish Embassy to cancel Tony Judt’s talk on the Israel lobby for being “too controversial.” The Embassy killed the event not on theoretical grounds, but in response to actual calls by prominent Jews, and it happened in New York, not Germany. Somehow, though, I don’t foresee it generating much alarm.
Me: Ezra really should just push the keyboard away and take some deep breaths.
I don’t see this generating a lot of alarm either. But, how Ezra can equate Abe Foxman’s effort to persuade Tony Judt not to give a talk with terrorists who threaten to kill people is really beyond me. I am no fan of Foxman’s and have said so in print quite a few times. But, tell me, did Foxman threaten to cut off Judt’s head?
And, if this is an example of caving in to anti-free speech intimidation, why has Ezra not decried his own magazine’s defenestration of Brendan Nyhan in response to the controversy and intimidation of the lefty blogosphere?
And, for that matter, why is he silent about the truly thuggish behavior at Columbia?
Update: See here and here if you want to get up to speed.