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.
He’s distinguished, all right, but not for anything good.
I first heard of Pipes in a review of his _Conspiracy_. I read it and thought it good. Later, I stumbled on to his web site and realized that the reason he could write with such understanding about conspiracy theorists was that he was one himself!
It was full of nonsense about the US turning muslim in a few years, about a supposed plot to turn the US into an Islamic Republic, and advocated “interning” some large number of muslims (not all but most). The stuff about Islam being the fastest growing religion in the USA is particularly dubious; Mormons, Pentecostals, even Wiccans, make the same claim! Pipes seemed not to know just how much competition there is in the conversion business in the USA!
Zhu Bajie
@Yoni: Pls Yoni. Don’t make us out to be fools. He believes Muslim Americans are a Fifth Column within U.S. society seeking to damage or overthrow our democractic form of government.
He once suggested totally obliterating any Gaza village from which a Qassam was launched as proper punishment for attacking Israel. Pipes is a ghoulish verbally homicidal hatemonger.
My wife also thinks Pipes looks like Satan.
I put videoclips from Pipes’s recent Harvard appearance up on my blog at Saudia in the Gun Sights.
How is Pipes a Muslim hater? Can you find a single statement of his that would qualify him as such? In fact the article you link to shows the opposite: he argues that 10-15% of Muslims are extremist, which means he thinks that 85-90% of Muslims are peaceful and moderate. How is that hatemongering??? What if someone called you an anti-semite if you criticize Israel, or extremist settlers, who are also a minority like the extremist Muslims?
Hey Rich, I think you should cover more stories that show people actually “metaknim et haolam”. Just showing people that are “breaking” it isn’t going to help. Provide solutions, not just blame or criticize others for doing wrong.
Tikkun Olam has a positive active aspect to it. Not just a negative critical aspect of it.
Stay true to the beaufitul idea/value/ethic of “Tikkun Olam”.
Hate-mongers like Pipes are truly the incarnation of evil among us.