34 Comments

1. erp:

C-SPAN, pre-Clinton, was as fair as any entity based in Washington DC could be. They set up a camera and just let it record whatever was going on in front of it. As a political junkie, I was in heaven. When we moved from Vermont to Florida in 1988, I would only consider buying a home in areas where C-SPAN was available.

Then after the first Clinton election, I thought I noticed a slight left leaning bias, but chalked it up to my own uber-sensitivity to anything even mildly pro-Clinton. It was during Clinton’s second election campaign that I my fears were confirmed and any pretense of C-SPAN fairness evaporated.

During that campaign it seemed the preponderance of callers were anti-Clinton. So in the interests of faux, politically correct “fairness,” Lamb introduced two lines. One pro-Clinton and one anti-Clinton and alternated calls.

That’s when any pretense of hands-off programming went out the window and that’s when I stopped tuning in.

Mar 17, 2005 - 11:41 am 2. Old Dad:

This has got to be a mistake. Perhaps, some low level staffer just dropped the ball.

I’ll accept that CSPAN has a certain amount of bias, but giving Irving even a second of airtime is insane.

Mar 17, 2005 - 11:47 am 3. Mike Walsh, MM:

I see what you mean. But then again, I have sometimes wondered about C-SPAN’S approach to ideological balance. It strikes me that the left-wing voices it airs are often the worst sort of moonbat. Then again, maybe moonbats are all that’s available. In any case, I imagine that the juxtaposition of Irving and Lipstadt would be to the former’s great detriment.

Mar 17, 2005 - 12:06 pm 4. jerry:

I think C-SPAN is correct in bringing Irving on with Lipstadt. Free debate, which the moonbat left seeks to suppress, allows the public to see Irving for what he is, i.e., a liar, fool and Nazi apologist.

Lipstadt won her case in a British Court and I am sure she will be able to handle Professor Irving on C-SPAN.

Mar 17, 2005 - 12:10 pm 5. Old Dad:

jerry,

I see your point, but still think that giving the old loon any airtime grants his argument credibility that it doesn’t deserve.

There are nuts who would argue against gravity, but I wouldn’t put them on TV.

Maybe CSPAN could do a special on lunatics featuring say Irving, and Dennis Kucinich?

Mar 17, 2005 - 12:27 pm 6. utron:

Worth noting, I think, that the full title of the book is History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving. CNN wasn’t asking Irving to appear as an expert on one point of view about the Holocaust, but simply as one of the two principals in the story: basically, they wanted to see the sparks fly.

I’m no fan of CNN, and Professor Lipstadt is well within her rights to feel that she’s spent enough time in the company of this despicable old fossil. However, to suggest that CNN was somehow validating Irving’s views by giving him airtime in this context is, IMHO, an overreaction.

Mar 17, 2005 - 12:56 pm 7. Terrye:

jerry:

I think she has refused to be on with him. Maybe she just plain hates the sight of the idiot.

I have to wonder if someone did a book on child rape would they feel the need to bring on a pedophile to balance things out?

Mar 17, 2005 - 1:01 pm 8. David Thomson:

ìI think C-SPAN is correct in bringing Irving on with Lipstadt. Free debate, which the moonbat left seeks to suppress, allows the public to see Irving for what he is, i.e., a liar, fool and Nazi apologist.î

C-Span also thought that Alan Dershowitz would agree with them. It didnít quite work out that way:

ìUpdate on CSpan, the Harvard presentation, and splitting hairs

It’s late and I (Deborah Lipstadt) have just returned from the Harvard presentation. CSpan did not show up but they did call Alan Dershowitz last night to try to convince him that he, as a great supporter of the First Amendment and free press, could not possibly support me in my decision to keep them out of the Harvard presentation. Dershowitz said he fully supported me.

He asked if they would put a slavery denier on. They said no. Why then, he asked, were they putting on a Holocaust denier. They said they were not putting Irving on to talk about Holocaust denial. He was to speak about the trial. [This is slipping hairs in the extreme, given that the trial was about Holocaust denial.]

But the story gets even worse. CSpan seemed completely unaware that at his talk in Atlanta — at which they had a camera crew filming — Irving engaged in repeated Holocaust denial. For example, he denied that gas chambers could have been gas chambers to kill humans. When he did his audience laughed appreciatively.

Obviously CSpan has not even screened Irving’s presentation, they very presentation they are fighting so hard to broadcast.

In any case, the Harvard presentation went very well. Dershowitz was exceptionally complimentary of my work and my stance. The questions were first rate. The crowd a good size. It would have been a perfect CSpan event…. But, that was not to be.

Good night

http://lipstadt.blogspot.com/2005/03/update-on-cspan-harvard-presentation.html

Mar 17, 2005 - 1:05 pm 9. Knucklehead:

utron,

Valid point, especially if it were CNN that was doing this. Any of their talking heads might want the “sparks flying”. But this was C-SPAN

C-SPAN is a private, non-profit company, created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a public service. Our mission is to provide public access to the political process. C-SPAN receives no government funding; operations are funded by fees paid by cable and satellite affiliates who carry C-SPAN programming.

I’m not quite sure how putting a loon like Irving on supports that mission statement.

Mar 17, 2005 - 1:06 pm 10. lindenen:

This is so sad. I used to think that we should broadcast CSPAN in Europe, Latin America, etc., so that the people in these countries would get a better view of our political process in action. Now, I’m not so sure.

Mar 17, 2005 - 1:21 pm 11. Carol_Herman:

erp, ditto. Different move. East Coast to West Coast. But the same thing’s been noticed, here.

Especially the thing with the “two lines.” Since they’d overflow with hatred. And, it didn’t matter. People said they called in on the “free line” after getting busy signals.

And, then I heard how computers were used to speed dial. And, I gave up. Plus, I stopped reading all newsprint. (And, I used to get the NY Times, as well as the Los Angeles Times. And, the Pasadena daily, the Star News.)

Not only did I quit. But every morning I see driveways without papers. And,that’s not how it was!

Did Brian Lamb change? Or did we?

Mar 17, 2005 - 1:23 pm 12. Carol_Herman:

Ah. And, I’d like to add that I’m a real book reader. I think I can run up thousands of dollars in purchases at Amazon. There’s always something. Yet it’s been years and years since I’ve looked at Brian Lamb’s Book Notes. (I even thought he went off the air with this show?) But what do I know.

Lipstadt isn’t going to lose any sales by not appearing. I guess that’s my point. Authors are forced to go into the marketplace, hoping to sell books. And, this is supposed to reach a “vast” audience. At least one that reads books!

And, here, it won’t matter to her at all. Plus, she avoids having to meet that dope, again. Why give a hater of Jews such a forum? It was a despicable decision. There are still Holocaust survivors alive. Imagine what it must be like for these people, who at the time of Hitler’s “Final Solution” not only saw their families depleted of members. Not only survived this extreme horror. But the likes of Irving find their friends among the arabs. And, the Europee-ins.

Good, too, for Lipstadt to know this blog (and, perhaps, others) will mention her book. And, that this, too, reaches her audience. Where would we be without those who record this stuff for us?

Mar 17, 2005 - 1:32 pm 13. utron:

My bad, Kncucklehead. C-SPAN, not CNN, does make a difference. But I’ll still argue that they’ve descended to infotainment; a sorry betrayal of their mission statement, but not necessarily a legitimization of Irving.

As erp mentioned, C-SPAN’s best days are a long way behind it. Too bad, really. I remember watching the Million Man March on C-SPAN, and their no-commentary, fixed-camera coverage was far more damning than anything I saw on the other news outlets, pro or con.

Mar 17, 2005 - 1:32 pm 14. WichitaBoy:

I think Terrye brings out a good point, particularly when juxtaposed with the previous post about FCC regulation of the blogs. Fairness is in the eye of the beholder. Who is to draw the line and where and why? There’s never going to be a perfect answer to this question. When there’s a basic consensus on what is reasonable, then we get decisions in line with that consensus; when everybody agrees on who the madmen are then everybody can agree to ban them. But when in times such as ours, times in which reality itself has bifurcated, who can play the reasonable censor? Why not put child-molesters or slavery-deniers on the air? Why indeed? On what grounds can we possibly condemn Ward Churchill?

Don’t get me wrong here, I think Irving is beneath contempt (and Churchill too for that matter). Truth be told, I abhor such people, but I try not to let it get to me. As far as I know, there are still lots of Armenian Holocaust deniers out there who are given tenure at the most prestigious universities.

Banning speech of any sort is a slippery slope I don’t particularly wish to start sliding down. As soon as a good reason is found to muzzle somebody, several more extremely good reasons will be found to muzzle several other somebodies. This is why I have always been a big fan of the First Amendment, in which it says “Congress shall make no law…”. No as in no. That doesn’t seem to me to be ambiguous or hard to understand. (In my mind I hear Clinton: “it depends on what ‘no’ means.”) I think the Founding Fathers were wise: put all the facts out, let all the crazies out, let them all get it out of their systems, release the poisons, let slip the dogs of hatred, for the people will not ultimately be fooled.

Mar 17, 2005 - 1:36 pm 15. David Thomson:

ìI’m not quite sure how putting a loon like Irving on supports that mission statement.î

It doesnít. First Amendment concerns are not the issue in this particular situation. They are not even slightly relevant. A media outlet has an obligation to find opposing points of views— which have earned the right to be given public exposure. Alan Dershowitz cites the example of a slavery denier. Any historian worth their salt, whether they are formally or informally trained, laughs at such nonsense. Should a medical quack be treated as an equal with a recognized heart specialist? David Irving has not earned the right to be treated with the same respect as that of Deborah Lipstadt. He is a proven buffoon and liar. Sadly, the intellectual virus of deconstructionism has seduced many well meaning people into believing that everything is relative and everybodyís opinion should be treated equally. This notion is utterly absurd.

Mar 17, 2005 - 1:36 pm 16. Carol_Herman:

I went to Amazon and ordered the book.

And, this should be made clear: Lipstadt was SUED by Irving! Princess Diana’s divorce lawyer was one to represent HIM. And, he LOST!

Outrageous for Lipstadt to have been sued? You bet. But England’s notorious for its anti-Semitism. So, you’ve got to give credit to this woman’s stamina. And, for the victory her legal team achieved in this case. Emil Zola would be proud.

Mar 17, 2005 - 1:45 pm 17. David Thomson:

ìBanning speech of any sort is a slippery slope I don’t particularly wish to start sliding down.î

There are two problems with this sentence. First of all, welcome to the real world. Censorship is intrinsically unavoidable. Itís only a matter of where one draws the line. Our founding fathers advocated the defense of political speech. Nothing else.

We have every right to marginalize somebody unworthy of our attention. The sad sack individual has a right to get on their own soap box and voice their opinion. Nonetheless, we are not obligated to provide the soap box, or even sit in the audience. Will we inevitably be confronted with awkward situations which are somewhat ambiguous? Yup, we most certainly will—but thatís not happening in this particular instance. David Irving is a proven jerk. He should not be allowed to waste anymore of our time.

Mar 17, 2005 - 3:34 pm 18. Knucklehead:

David,

Yuppers. Loons are free to stomp and bray for all they’re worth (provided they shut up between the hours of 10PM and 9AM ;>). Free speech does not require that anybody else, most especially taxpayers, fund their soapboxes and megaphones.

Mar 17, 2005 - 4:05 pm 19. jerry:

The problem is that Irving isn’t a lunatic. He would not get a hearing even in today’s climate if he were. He is a credible military historian and if you don’t confront him at every opportunity his lies will go as truth to some. I understand Lipstadt’s been there, done that attitude but sometimes when you grap a tar baby like Irving you are stuck for life.

Mar 17, 2005 - 5:14 pm 20. David Thomson:

“The problem is that Irving isn’t a lunatic. He would not get a hearing even in today’s climate if he were.”

Oh, is that so? I guess somebody forgot to tell Ward Churchill, Noam Chomsky, and Michael Moore. Sadly, lunatics are given quite a lot of unearned attnetion in today’s intellectually relativist culture.

ìHe is a credible military historian and if you don’t confront him at every opportunity his lies will go as truth to some.î

How are you defining credible? And what does David Irvingís military writings have to do with his easily debunked works on the holocaust? Deborah Lipstadt is confronting this silly man. That is precisely what she is doing! Lipstadt is trying to make sure that Irving is not provided with a soap box by a legitimate media source. Let him find an audience somewhere in the back of an alley.

Mar 17, 2005 - 5:44 pm 21. Carol_Herman:

Ward Churchill and David Irving. They should both be invited. Lipstadt doesn’t need another Kangaroo court. (Well, at least she won her case! Give credit to the fact that she was dragged into court BY Irving!) I guess I left our Scott Peterson. Irving and Peterson could share a stage and tell anyone who wants to listen what it feels like to be on the losing end of court cases?

Meanwhile, I’m glad for Lipstadt. I hope her books have sticking powers like Emil Zola’s. (And, yes, a number of Amazon customers were very enthusiastic. This stuff should be taught to kids. They need to know how our courts work. How unfair some things are. And, when you’re lucky the judge and juries get it right.)

Hitler culled six million Jews from Europe’s gene pool. Someday, they may notice no Einsteins. No Hans Bethe’s. Just jerks. And, soon to be joined by lots of muslims demanding Islam’s laws to prevail. Does God laugh or cry?

Mar 17, 2005 - 7:37 pm 22. richard mcenroe:

I wouldn’t trust David Irving’s scholarship if he said we took the beaches on D-Day anymore…

Mar 17, 2005 - 8:20 pm 23. Patrick Tyson:

Evans’s tone is sometimes revealing in its prickliness, as though he were defending not just historical truth but the status of academic historians. A victory for Irving, he says,

“would have meant a confirmation of all the abuse that Irving had heaped upon the historical profession over the years.”

But the evidence marshalled by Evans against Irving is devastating. To claim, as Irving has done on many occasions, that more people were killed by allies in the bombing of Dresden than Jews by the Nazis at Auschwitz is a good way to grab attention. But his figure of two hundred and fifty thousand (instead of the previously cited forty thousand) victims in Dresden, published in the 1966 and in subsequent editions of his book “The Destruction of Dresden,” was based on a forged Nazi document. Irving had to admit it was a fake, after years of denial, yet he still went on inflating the figures in the eighties and nineties. And Irving wouldn’t be Irving if he didn’t add a peculiarly nasty twist to his tale. Since, in his opinion, no Jews were gassed at Auschwitz, he had to explain why so many European Jews disappeared during the war. He came up with an explanation in 1989. Many Jews had somehow managed to slip into Palestine, he said, while other Jewish survivors were “shipped westward where they ended up in cities like Dresden. I don’t have to tell you what happened in Dresden three weeks after Auschwitz was evacuated by the Germans.” In short, it was the Allies who killed the Jews. Churchill was the war criminal, not Hitler.

Evans’s analysis of Irving’s much admired “Hitler’s War” is equally damning. He shows how Irving hid some of the worst statements about the Jews in footnotes, or mistranslated the German to make them sound almost innocuous. Facts were invented, such as fifty thousand Jews having fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. (Would that it were true.) And historical documents were edited to distort the facts. Irving quoted Goebbels’s diary of March, 1942, as evidence that Hitler was kept in the dark about the killings in Auschwitz and Treblinka. According to Irving, Goebbels wrote about the extermination program on March 27th, but “evidently held his tongue when he met Hitler two days later.” In fact, as Evans shows, Goebbels did not meet Hitler two days later but did mention on March 27th that “the Fuhrer is the persistent pioneer and spokesman of a radical solution.” Irving had conveniently left this passage out. As Evans concludes, Deborah Lipstadt was “right to describe Irving as a Hitler partisan who manipulated the historical record in an attempt to portray his hero in a favorable light.” Mr. Justice Gray, in his judgment of Irving v. Penguin and Lipstadt, delivered on April 11, 2000, reached the same conclusion.

—Ian Buruma, The New Yorker, April 16, 2001

There are plenty of people who lie as a matter of course (some of them turn up on C-SPAN almost daily.) The honesty of Louisiana Governor Earl Long is never to be seen. Earl liked to say, “Tell ‘em I lied,” or words to that effect whenever he was confronted with a failure to carry through on a promise.

More seriously, I don’t particularly want to see or hear David Irving, but it’s important not to minimize or, worse, ignore the evil (for what else can one term it) that he and his ilk speak and write. Confrontation is better. I’d like to see David Irving on C-SPAN—paired with, for instance, Christopher Hitchens. That would be interesting.

Mar 17, 2005 - 8:31 pm 24. zeke:

richard cohen wrote a column in wapo when clinton’s campaign manager accused hillary of calling him an fjb after clinton lost his election to congress or re-electin to be governor(can’t remember which). Well the guy’s wife was in the room along with bill and hillary. There was a third witness who says he heard her say it too. By his own admission the guy said he was in the the room next door with the door closed. Well that cinched it for cohen he said it was implausible that someone could hear someone with the door closed. See, richard, had to eliminate the third unbiased witness so he had to DENY the the plausibility of the third unbiased witness hearing hillary scream fjb. That’s my little moral lesson of today. Which is richard cohen is no different from this guy. I have other cohen stories too. BTW, I know I can’t write worth a darn.

Mar 17, 2005 - 10:09 pm 25. truepeers:

“The problem is that Irving isn’t a lunatic. He would not get a hearing even in today’s climate if he were. He is a credible military historian and if you don’t confront him at every opportunity his lies will go as truth to some.”

Well, according to my mother who knew Irving in his student days as a Physics failure at Imperial College, London, she first got a sense that he was nuts when he told her (she’s Jewish) that he spent his summer vacations on pilgrimmage to Berchtesgaden. He has always had fascist sympathies (he was an editor of the student newspaper if anyone wants to check it out); it was not his later historical research that turned him into what he is.

Mar 18, 2005 - 12:20 am 26. RepresentativePress:

Bellow is a copy of an email I sent to Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen.

Dear Mr. Cohen:

C-SPAN is the best thing on television, you should do some research before you start attacking and slandering a great resource.

C-SPAN is doing a terrific job and it is wrong of you to try to intimidate the people working there.

C-SPAN’s decision to allow David Irving to be heard was fair, not a “cockeyed version of fairness” as you described it. It is not “mindless” to give the C-SPAN viewers the chance to hear the facts some people are ignorant of or unwilling to let others know.

C-SPAN viewers might discover that use of the term “Holocaust Denier” to describe David Irving is grotesque, manipulative and dishonest. Mr. Irving has documented evidence of the massive shooting of Jews and has written and talked about gassings taking place at Auschwitz. Withholding these facts is journalistic malpractice. What you and Deborah Lipstadt are doing is wrong. You and Ms. Lipstadt owe C-SPAN an apology. I hope to see a correction in your paper.

Mar 18, 2005 - 3:14 am 27. iceman:

i remember steve martin said that he belong to a small group of people who denied that World War II ever happened…….

you can hear deborah lipstadt on the book guys

here

http://www.bookguys.com/bookguys/rams/0510.ram

i have not heard it yet but am recording it on rogue ameba’s audio hijack

http://www.rogueamoeba.com/audiohijack/

on my mac, for later listening on the ipod in the car or running

the book guys have a site here

http://www.bookguys.com/

and their archive of shows is here

http://www.bookguys.com/archives.htm

Mar 18, 2005 - 5:40 am 28. jerry:

I have read Irving’s history of Luftwaffe and his biography of Rommel before he became famous as Nazi sympathizer. They are both quite good. Like many students of Germany war making capability, Irving began to identify with the Nazis and it was psychologically impossible for him to do this unless he could dispense with the Holocaust. There is actually very little to indicate that he is a holocaust denier in either book. I donít know whether he was keeping it to himself or it developed later in his life.

Mar 18, 2005 - 5:56 am 29. richard mcenroe:

RepresentativePress (heh) ó If putting David Irving on is a definition of fairness, then PBS is obliged to follow its Darwin miniseries with a big-budget adaptation of creationist Bubba-Lee Beaudine’s Evolution Are A Athiest Plot…

Mar 18, 2005 - 7:50 am 30. Carol_Herman:

The problems in academia today can be traced to the elevation of guys like Ward Churchill and David Irving. That C-SPAN has turned itself into a stooge for these jerks is just sad. But, ya know? What do you expect from today’s campuses, anyway? Social Science is an Oxymoron. Ditto, Social Studies. And, who know? Maybe, even Social Security?

Put the word “social” under the microscope and you’re sure to come up with some sure fire sexually transmitted diseases. Who knew there was such a market for those whose main hobby is to take it in the ass? The scope beyond Hollywood. Or the place where TV cameras meet the elites. You pick.

Mar 18, 2005 - 9:57 am 31. RepresentativePress:

Richard, as I have tried to explain, what Deborah Lipstadt is doing is wrong .

Irving is a man that believes that Jews were killed in great number and has documneted specific conversations of Germans talking aout the shootings. Irving is a man who believes that the Jews died in concentration camps. Irving is a man who believe that Nazis not only killed Jews with mass shootings but also killed Jews in concentration camps.

Now does that sound like a “Holocaust Denier?

If your first reaction to what I am writting is that I must be wrong about what Irving thinks then you prove my point that using the term “Holocaust Denier” to describe David Irving is grotesque, manipulative and dishonest.

Irving wrote, “If this biography were simply a history of the rise and fall of Hitler’s Reich it would be legitimate to conclude “Hitler killed the Jews.” He after all had created the atmosphere of hatred with his speeches in the 1930’s; he and Himmler had created the SS; his speeches, though never explicit, left the clear impression that “liquidate” was what he meant. For a full-length war biography of Hitler, I felt that a more analytical approach to the key questions of initiative, complicity, and execution would be necessary. Remarkably, I found that Hitler’s own role in the “Final Solution”-whatever that was-has never been examined.” -David Irving London, January 1976

and January 1989

What Deborah Lipstadt is doing is wrong, she is CREATING the false impression that Irving and others think that Nazis did not kill Jews. She has done harm, causing unnecessary anguish with her arrogance and dishonesty.

Mar 18, 2005 - 3:35 pm 32. Carol_Herman:

Representative Press: ISN’T

Lipstadt was taken to court by the POS Irving. And, in court, she won.

Her book is about her court case.

Sometimes that stuff makes excellent reading. Reminds me of a different event, the murder of JFK, where the “representitive press” fell in love with a single bullet theory. The bullet and the theory are still making rounds.

Mort Sahl, such a talented man, took the Warren Commission’s volumes on stage … He then read out loud some of the stuff Warren accepted as fact.

Didn’t change the reality. At Dealey Plaza, on such a beautiful sunny afternoon, November 22, 1963, a number of men shot at Kennedy and killed him.

Today, you can go to Dealey Plaza and see how the government has monkeyed with the place. The knoll’s gone. The street lights can be moved like pieces on a Hollywood set. And, there are strange listening devices spread about.

Doesn’t stop the truth from getting discussed.

The murder of 6 million Jews, systematically, and on purpose, by the Nazi’s is fact. Too bad many Germans still can’t wrap themselves around the horror. And, they have apologists climbing out of the woodwork.

Meanwhile, Hitler? Fart. And, he’s now the smell you get in your underpants. Far from a leader. And, the people who idealize him still, are just losers.

Mar 18, 2005 - 5:57 pm 33. Richard Nieporent:

Representative Press, it is amazing that you alone have discovered that Mr. Irving is not a Holocaust denier. And it is even more amazing that you sent Richard Cohen an email telling him that. Pray tell us how you managed to do that when there has never been an email address for Mr. Cohen posted on the Washington Post website. I guess your imaginary email is as accurate as your imaginary discovery about Mr. Irving. I don’t know what you are smoking, Representative Press, but it can’t be good for your heath.

Mar 18, 2005 - 9:40 pm 34. Gary Rosen:

Can we please dispense with this “free speech” and “First Amendment” baloney? Every media, from MSM to blogs to cable TV and on and on makes decisions as to what they choose to air or display. NOBODY is guauanteed access to someone else’s media. They are only protected from the government prohibiting them from talking or writing. Irving can babble his derangement all he wants – it does not have to be aired on C-SPAN.

Mar 19, 2005 - 1:34 pm

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