Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Anyone noticed a certain resemblance to Mephistopheles?

Phil Weiss brings the strange news that Daniel Pipes, one of the scuzziest of the Jewish Muslim-haters, has been feted by Stanford’s right-wing Hoover Institution as the Taube/Diller Distinguished Visiting Fellow. Yes, it’s true that Pipes earned a PhD and at one time might’ve been considered a credible academic figure in his field. But that period passed long ago and he has become a pamphleteer and lapsed into a parody of a ranting Islamophobe.

Knowing that George Schultz and Caspar Weinberger were once affiliated with Hoover, I apparently mistakenly thought that it was a serious conservative think tank. And maybe at one time it was. But certainly not now and certainly not with Muslim-haters like Pipes as “distinguished” faculty.

Reviewing his bio at the Hoover website, I see his his most recent newspaper article is Counting the Number of Radical Islamists, which reminds me of the crucial question of medieval theology: how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?  No doubt Pipes’ ruminations on this matter are equally as critical to the well-being of the western world.  The other article Appeasing Iran: A Disastrous Policy, makes me even more appreciative of Barack Obama’s impending victory.  It will leave bitter, hateful intellectual petty tyrants like Pipes eating dust on the sidelines of the policy debates over the next eight years.  Just where he belongs.

These articles were published in the august Philadelphia Bulletin (“Philadelphia’s Family Newspaper: Almost Everybody Reads the Bulletin!”), which seems to be Philadelphia’s answer to the Washington Times.  So much for Pipes’ journalistic gravitas.  I just hope the Phillies don’t ask PIpes to advise them on Tampa Bay’s geopolitical weaknesses.

I note that other current Hoover Fellows are that darling of the National Review and Pajamas Media, Victor Davis Hanson and Diane Ravitch.  Are we surprised?

I thought it was humorous that Pipes took the time to write about me a few months ago and he actually counted how many times I’d criticized him here.  He has a serious case of self-regard that isn’t justified by the anything more than hype, puffery and the neocon PR apparatus.