You don't think it's really weird that on the one hand Chomsky wrote Thion--the publisher--saying that he should follow his own judgment in deciding how to publish the "Chomsky Preface", and that on the other hand Chomsky's defenders work very hard to say that the "Chomsky Preface" was included in Faurisson's book without Chomsky's permission?
You don't think it's really weird that Chomsky writes that the "Chomsky Preface" was written to advocate Voltairean free-speech absolutism, and yet the "Chomsky Preface" concludes with the paragraph:
"...is it true that Faurisson is an anti-Semite or a neo-Nazi? As noted earlier, I do not know his work very well. But from what I have read -- largely as a result of the nature of the attacks on him -- I find no evidence to support either conclusion. Nor do I find credible evidence in the material that I have read concerning him, either in the public record or in private correspondence. As far as I can determine, he is a relatively apolitical liberal of some sort. In support of the charge of anti-Semitism, I have been informed that Faurisson is remembered by some schoolmates as having expressed anti-Semitic sentiments in the 1940s, and as having written a letter that some interpret as having anti-Semitic implications at the time of the Algerian war. I am a little surprised that serious people should put such charges forth -- even in private -- as a sufficient basis for castigating someone as a long-time and well-known anti-Semitic. I am aware of nothing in the public record to support such charges."?
A Voltairean defense would be "Faurisson is an anti-Semite, and probably a neo-Nazi, but he has the same rights to free speech as the rest of us." Chomsky's "Faurisson Preface" has something else, something very un-Voltairean, added to the mix...
Brad DeLong