> The one thing Dershowitz seems to have going for him is his tenacity
> and aggressivity. I recently watched the Finkelstein-Dershowitz debate
> on Democracy Now from a few years ago (the video is on Finkelstein's
> website), and Dersh steamrolled both NF and Amy Goodman. It was
> painful to watch. Is this what makes him a good lawyer?
Yes, he's good at running out the clock, on time-limited things like radio programs, particularly where the moderator isn't used to highly competitive winner-takes-all debates.
Incidentally, Chomsky made a particularly interesting observation after his Harvard debate, on ZMag's forums:
"Personally, I regard debates as one of the most irrational institutions that humans have devised. In the sciences, for example, you don't have "debates": rather, discussions, in which people try to come to some common understanding. At least, that's the ideal, often approaches, whereas debates, in their very nature, demand irrationality (you're not allowed to say, "interesting point, maybe you're right, let's explore it"). And formats such as the one you saw are designed to undercut the possibility of reasoned discussion.
"What you get out of it is up to you. If you want to find out what was lies and what was true, it's quite easy to check.
"Why take part? Well, one reason is that it's one of the very few ways even to reach certain kinds of audiences, particularly in elite intellectual centers, like Cambridge, where options are carefully controlled."
-- Noam Chomsky, Dec 4, 2005
Tayssir