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

Dennis the Peasant, the scourge of Pajamas Media, has outdone himself in what I take to be a fictional press release (though who knows–it might be genuine) announcing that the wingnuts of PJM (and assorted fellow travelers) will be moderating the next Republican presidential debate. What is most delicious is the media profiles of the various celebrity moderators. Among them are:

Ricardo Klement (Pat Buchanan): Ricardo Klement is your average Professor of Ethic Studies at the University of Bueno Aires in Argentina. He is presently a visiting professor in the Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures Department of Columbia University, and the author of Sometimes Little Eichmanns Push Back: On The Justice Of Roasting Jews. Mr. Klement spends much of his free time advocating for elderly German refugees he feels the government is persecuting. His hobbies include painting and listening to Wagner.

Blanche Yenta-Letard (Pam Geller or, as Dennis calls her “Pammycakes”): Marie-Louise Yenta-LeTard, also known as Blanche, is your average 40-something New York City based Jewish-American Princess. Ms. Yenta-LeTard is founder and chief editor of the Meshugeneh News Network and is presently writing her first book, Your Burqa Vs. My Boobs: A Personal History of the Israeli-Arab Conflict. Her hobbies include producing tightly scripted comedy sketches on YouTube and doing Fran Drescher impersonations until you could just scream.

As I read this post I was laughing so uncontrollably I thought my wife, reading near me on the sofa, was afraid I was having a coronary. Nothing like a good laugh over good satire to revive the soul.

Aussie Dave has written once more laying out some of his alleged legal claims against me. Seems he wants to charge me with defamation. I thought it would be worthwhile, if only for a primer in slander, libel and defamation law to examine his claims:

If I do sue you, it will have nothing to do with your political views - as heinous as I find them - and everything to do with defamation.

How about you run this past your lawyers?

“Which brings me to Johnson’s Little Green Footballs, a nominee in the Israel Advocacy category. How does a blog written by a non-Jew and non-Israeli get into a Jewish and Israeli Blogging Awards competition? I guess if you really stretch you could say that Charles always is looking to uphold the most extreme right wing viewpoints offered within Israeli politics. So perhaps that rates him an “honorary Israeli” designation. But seriously, one of the main reasons Charles gets nominated is that he in turn invited Aussie Dave to join him in Pajamas Media (see the latter’s profile). So it’s only natural that Dave would return the favor.”

Looks a lot like an unprivileged statement of fact that is harmful to my reputation, and published as a result of malice on your part.

Then there’s your false assertion I was booted from Pajamas Media.

And I haven’t even looked into the possible copyright violation yet, but it doesn’t really matter. You have repeatedly defamed me. And the onus would be on YOU to prove the truth of these statements, as a defence to a defamation claim. Which will be kind of hard to do, since they are utterly false to begin with.

I want a public, unqualified apology on this blog, with you acknowledging that you have no basis for making these statements.

As for the first claim that he wouldn’t be suing me for my “heinous” political views–let’s laugh that one off. Everyone knows that this is at the heart of his animus towards me.

The salient portion of his quotation from this blog post is this: “…One of the main reasons Charles gets nominated is that he in turn invited Aussie Dave to join him in Pajamas Media (see the latter’s profile). So it’s only natural that Dave would return the favor.” I made what I considered a reasonable inference based on a pattern of facts (i.e. LGF is run by a non-Jewish, non-Israeli author who nevertheless is nominated and wins the Jewish and Israeli Blog Awards). How else would you explain Charles Johnson’s presence in a competition dedicated in its title to groups of which he is not a member (i.e. Jewish/Israeli)?

As to whether or not Aussie Dave was “returning a favor,” let’s look at a not dissimilar situation. Marc Cooper was one of the few liberal bloggers included in PJM (he’s no longer affiliated). He edits LA Weekly (not sure if he’s still the editor). Michael Totten is one of the right of center bloggers at PJM. Marc blogs at PJM, Totten gets published at LA Weekly. Accident? I doubt it. Result of corrupt inside-dealings? No. But just the kind of internal back-scratching that goes on in these sorts of situations. It happens all the time. And hey, it’s entirely possible that Cooper actually likes Totten’s writing, though God only would know why he’d want to publish someone who largely cheers U.S. Mideast policy.

Instead of blaming me for pointing out something that many might find obvious, he should defend LGF’s inclusion in the award competition and tell everyone how proud he is of his buddy Chuck’s fine contribution to the Israeli-Palestinian debate & let it go at that. The fact that he doesn’t–that he makes a wild-eyed inflation of my claim by charging that I’ve called him “corrupt” says reams about his malice toward me.

The way I see it, Dave’s gonna have a hard row to hoe. He has to prove I claimed something was true while having “knowledge of falsity or with reckless disregard for the truth.” The fact that I believed what I said to be true about JIB is an awfully big legal hump to get over. Besides, I was expressing my opinion (strong, for sure) about the Awards and last I checked people were entitled to have opinons that differ with Dave’s. And by the way, if anyone goes back over our colloquy they will find that I made a number of comments which I believed in good faith but which Dave pointed out to me weren’t true. In the very few instances when that occured, I admitted as much here. So if I acted entirely out of malice, how do you explain that Dave?

Further, I’ve asked him to provide proof of his claim that he resigned from Pajamas Media and was not dropped. I’m willing to say what he said was true IF he presents the evidence. But he’s refused to do it here. You give a guy a chance to prove what he’s saying is true that would also show a small bit of good faith on my part and he refuses to give you the satisfaction. That’s Dave all over.

Further, my critique of the way he ran JIB claimed that the process was almost guaranteed, whether intentionally or not, to result in victory to right-wing blogs like LGF. And guess what happened? Those blogs did win. AD thinks I believe there was a blatant conspiracy to achieve such a result. I don’t believe that. But we all wear ideological blinders to a certain extent (Dave much more than others). The best of us try to transcend those preferences or prejudices we might have to embrace a more dispassionate view of the facts. But we all come with preconceived notions. My claim is that JIB, when he ran it, was replete with them and that this virtually guaranteed a certain outcome.

Now, the larger issue here is: can someone like me criticize someone like Aussie Dave without getting charged with a lawsuit? Can someone criticize the ideological leanings of a blogging contest without getting a lawsuit, or the threat of one, slapped on them? This gets at the issue of using blogs and the law as weapons of political intimidation. And it bleeds over into the issue I’ve made one of my mini-theses here: cyber-bullying.

Dave outghta get over this obsession he has with me as the bete noire of the Zionist left. So I said a few things about him that ticked him off. People write those sorts of comments at my blog all the time and I don’t turn around and threaten them with lawsuits. Do they piss me off? Sure. Do I respond strongly, even vehemently in my own defense. You bet. That’s part of the give and take of argument over the interet. But if I went after every person who ever said anything false about me I’d be in court till kingdom come and people could rightly accuse me of misusing both the courts and bullying my opponents–precisely what Aussie Dave and Rachel Neuwirth (and their allies Jewlicious and Steven Plaut) are doing.

Of course, I’m not counting people who post my images at their site to demean me, those folks I will pursue.

And as for that “public, unqualified apology” the bully’s looking for–in your dreams, in your dreams. I’m not Chaim Seidler Feller who provided Neuwirth a similar apology after four years of her legal intimidation. No sane person wants a lawsuit on their hands. I don’t relish spending a year or two fighting this one in court. But if I have to this is a helluva lot more worthy cause than Paris Hilton’s court appearances for her various improprieties.

Totten’s journalistic credo: ‘in it for the money’ (photo: Michaeltotten.blogspot.com)

Ethan Holda of Ethan’s Journal just left a comment on my blog post about Michael Totten, the poor misguided fool who thinks he’s America’s answer to Lawrence of Arabia. The latter’s traveling the Arab world on behalf of Pajamas Media and the National Review and whadaya know–everywhere he goes he finds people who reinforce his notions about the wonderfulness of America–American shopping, American suburbs, American values (as refracted through a neo-con lens). Some people can make a journey of 10,000 miles and never have their preconceived ideas about themselves or their homeland challenged. They are blissfully content in their own smug, self-satisfied realm.

Ethan seems to be having a lot of fun at Totten’s expense here:

Tottenism - The act of imbuing an ordinary occurrence with an inordinate sense of danger or drama. For instance, one might normally say, “Today I rode the A train to my first day at my new job.” However, were one to express this using a tottenism, one would say, “Today I rode the notoriously dangerous NYC subway system and managed to make to my first day on the job without getting mugged, murdered, or raped.” This is so named after the style of journalist Michael J. Totten. It is sometimes thought that tottenism also refers to stating an assertion based on a single experience or testimonial as an unassailable and universal fact. While this is another element of Mr. Totten’s style, we don’t have an expression for it yet.

Michael visited Lebanon and wrote about it extensively (including one memorably stupid post entitled I Am Not a Spy) though not very accurately according to Ethan, who actually lives there as opposed to Totten who just blew through. Ethan’s not very impressed by Totten’s carelessness and inaccuracies.

Apparently, Totten’s touring the Mideast on our behalf not for some pure journalistic purpose al la Andre Malraux, Lowell Thomas or Jack Reed. Rather, Totten’s purpose is to bring home the gold (this from an e-mail exchange between the two of them):

Totten: Don’t be a jerk. I’ve made more money in the last month than I have ever made in my life. And I worked in a very high paying industry before I got switched to this.

This is journalism as “cashing in” and represents the cheapening of the once vaunted ideal of the foreign correspondent.

I have this image in my mind of Totten chirping in some Arab’s ear about the wonders of American suburbs, malls and Red Bull beer only to find that the guy’s some Osama type who promptly tries to knock his block off. Totten desperately needs some “native” to trim his sails. This is a scene that cries out for the irony and slashing satirical wit of E.M. Forster as written in A Passage to India.

Ethan’s done us the invaluable service of dredging up this piece of buffoonery from a 2002 FrontpageMagazine post (can anyone who’s ever published there have ANY journalistic credibility?). This really must be seen to be believed so in the interests of fun I present it to you now:

Send Pizza to Our Israeli Allies
By Michael J. Totten
FrontPageMagazine.com | December 9, 2002

While surfing the (indispensable) blogosphere, I came across a link at www.blogsofwar.com that said “Send Pizza to the IDF.” I found this charming and followed the link. Turns out there is a non-profit organization in Israel with the Web site www.pizzaidf.org. These folks take orders from all over the world for pizza, donuts, and soda pop, and in cooperation with Israeli security forces, deliver food and messages to IDF soldiers. Gifts of more than US$250 are tax-deductible in the United States.

There’s something truly heartwarming about this. Such a small and easy thing to do for people who could really use some encouragement and thanks. I’m an atheist/agnostic ex-Christian who has never been to Israel, but sometimes I feel like those folks over there are my countrymen, not just “merely” our
allies.

It costs less than US $20 to send a pizza to a patrol. With so much virulent anti-Semitism from nearly all quarters, a small gift to Israeli soldiers from someone outside Israel is a nice little antidote to racism and hate.

You know after an Israeli Border Police detachment gets done with some serious bone-smashing of Palestinian shepherds who refuse to hump their donkeys (yes, it really happened), it’s really nice to offer them refreshments to keep up their spirits. Pizza bought with the donations of kindly, right-wing zealots like Michael J. Totten really does hit the spot.

If you’d like to read a particularly vicious (and deserving) surgical evisceration of Totten’s writing about Arabia, read this piece by Lounsberry. He really has Totten’s number.