Any thoughts on the l'affaire Jacoby?
Jacob Segal
An Unfree Press: The Jeff Jacoby Affair
If anyone ever doubted the totalitarian mentality that lurks right below the surface of every "liberal" brain, the outrageous firing of Jeff Jacoby should put those doubts to rest. The excuse given for the firing of Jacoby is laughable. (Of course the Globe lefties didn't have the spine to do even this honestly, covering it up as a "suspension" without pay for four months). The reckless cruelty towards Jacoby, a talented young man who has no blemish on his career is inexcusable. It is self-evident that no one but a conservative would have been treated this way.
Jeff Jacoby was the only conservative columnist on the staff of The Globe. But that is one more conservative than, say, the leftists at the Los Angeles Times or National Public Radio can live with. Now The Globe joins them as a party paper without dissent. Token conservatives do pepper the pages of other major dailies like The New York Times and The Washington Post. But "pepper" is the word. Their main courses are dished up daily by legions of left-wing chefs.
Readers curious about the commissar-like mentality of the liberal media community could do worse than read Harry Stein's new book How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy and Found Inner Peace. Stein was a columnist for several of the liberal magazines (so-called) that shape our national tastes. Having fathered a child, Stein decided to take a look at the child-care "issue" about the time Dan Quayle was being pilloried for suggesting that two parents might help a youngster to get a good start in life. Without thinking too hard about the implications of what he was doing - indeed without realizing that there were any - Stein wrote a piece that raised some mild questions about whether institutional childcare was all that it was cracked up to be. The next thing he knew, an old friend was accosting him at a dinner party with "Since when did you become a fascist?" Bang, buddy, you're dead.
It is appropriate that Jeff Jacoby should be made an unperson by his leftwing bosses at The Globe over a column written as a tribute to the Americans who wrote the Constitution and paid a dear personal price for their gift to the rest of us of a nation conceived in liberty. Jeff Jacoby has now paid a price too. And for the same reason.
David Horowitz is editor-in-chief of FrontPage Magazine and president of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture.
© Copyright 2000 by Salon.com
Posted on FrontPagemag.com 6/27/00
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