I'm reprinting Patterico's note on Deborah Frisch to show my solidarity against this mockery of free speech.
I got a lot of chuckles from Jeff's baby pictures as well as his one way interviews. We've also had a disagreement or two. But there's no way that anybody deserves this kind of harrassment, and that goes double for Jeff Goldstein who is a very valuable contributor to the blogosphere and elevated social & political dialog and commentary.
I think it goes without saying that the derangement of the Left wignuts is bodering on psychotic. What kind of person threatens kids?
I was about done with this whole Deborah Frisch thing, but I can’t let this stand.
There is a sloppy article in “Inside Higher Ed” that — I swear I am not making this up — portrays Frisch as the victim of right-wing crazies, just for making an innocent joke or two. I have excerpts from the article, and Jeff’s response to that article, below.
Also, at least one lefty site is accepting her lie that she didn’t publish comments about French-kissing Goldstein’s boy. Jeff has confirmed that she posted those comments from the same IP address that she used to post other comments.
First, the Inside Higher Ed article:
“I enjoy writing things that inflame, mock and infuriate the right,” Deborah Frisch said in an e-mail interview Sunday in response to a question about her online activities. By any measure, she’s achieving her goals — and she’s also out of a job.
Frisch posted a comment last week on Protein Wisdom, a Web site known for its no holding back conservative commentary, frequently with considerable mocking of liberal academics and ideas. Frisch, an adjunct lecturer at the University of Arizona until this weekend, said in the posting that she would not be sad if the 2-year old child of the site’s founder, Jeff Goldstein, was “Jon Benet Ramseyed,” and she reportedly posted other questions of the sort a Ramsey-inspired attacker might ask. (Goldstein lives in Colorado, where Ramsey was killed.)
Although Frisch apologized for the remark, which she called “nasty,” numerous conservative Web sites over the weekend traded stories about Frisch, saying that she had physically threatened Goldstein and his child (she denies this and says that however inappropriate her comments were, they weren’t threatening); that Frisch is Churchillian, as in Ward, not Winston (she agrees on some counts and has defended the notorious “little Eichmanns” remark); and that Frisch organized an online attack on Protein Wisdom (she denies this). They called on Arizona administrators to fire her (e-mail addresses were provided).
Frisch portrays herself as the victim. She’s trying to make herself into the next Ward Churchill:
Frisch acknowledged that the tone of her comments — even if they had nothing to do with her teaching — make her a target. “I play a dangerous game by being a professor and also having a very rabid left-wing blog and also posting nasty inflammatory comments on other people’s blogs,” she said. “The issue is how these rabid, crazy, right-wing nutcases have stalked me, told on me, reacted totally out of proportion to a joke in bad taste I posted on a blog. They are treating me the way they treated Ward Churchill — a lunatic lefty in academia who deserves to be verbally attacked, abused and mocked.”
The mind reels.
To state the simple truth: the issue, Ms. Frisch, is that you posted numerous comments threatening violence on a two-year-old boy. If you had directed those comments at one of my children, I would have, at a minimum, called the police. In my view, you’re lucky you’re just out of a job, and not facing criminal charges.
I talked to Jeff Goldstein about this article. Jeff’s access to his site has been spotty due to the repeated DoS attacks he has suffered lately. Accordingly, he authorized me to publish his response to the article. He has posted that response at his own site, here, but I am reproducing it in its entirety so that it can still be read if his site goes down again:
I received no email or phone call from anyone at Inside Higher Ed.
A few corrections:
1) I don’t believe I engage in “considerable mocking of liberal academics and ideas.” I taught English for a number of years at a private university in Colorado, in fact, so I’m not unfamiliar with the academy.
True, I have addressed issues of identity politics within the academy, but I’ve done so seriously. And for the record, I consider myself a classical liberal (I am about as far from a social conservative as one can be, for instance). so while I’ve written extensively on questions of progressive philosophical assumptions and how they lead to things like, say, free speech zones, I don’t mock liberalism. Just the opposite in fact: I think progressivism is in opposition to classical liberalism — particularly insofar as it promotes group identity over individualism.
2) Frisch’s apology was immediately followed by a walking back of that apology, and has now culminated in a desire to see rightwingers heads cracked open with baseball bats, and suggestions that I doctored her comments.
But her comments were cut and pasted as she made them, and they are recorded in Google caches in pristine condition. The suggestion that I altered them, therefore, is potentially libelous.
3) No one on my site harrassed Frisch, as a perusal of the various threads she appeared on will attest. And in my post, her school email was not included.
4) Frisch is relying on sites like this one to suggest that she is a victim. Don’t let her get away with it. Frisch was looking, by her own admission, to be banned from my site.
Not only that, but she is trying to suggest she is guilty of nothing more than engaging in a “teachable moment” — the presumptuous and self-importance of which is staggering.
But it bears noting that, even in your article, Frisch, an adjunct instructor, refers to herself as a “professor” and compares herself to Ward Churchill. Her desire for academic and leftwing martyrdom drips from her every word and claim. But I won’t be used as her dupe.
I had been prepared to let this go (something I believe I made fairly clear after my site recovered from one of the 3 DoS attacks I was under this weekend), but now that Frisch has decided to try to parlay her infamy into victimized Truth Speaker status, I’m prepared to follow through and make it clear once and for all that Ms Frisch is a very sad case indeed. In fact, the only reason she’s a “target” at all is that she has worked hard at setting herself up as one.
That is to say, rather than blaming “rabid, crazy, right-wing nutcases” for her troubles (such as they are; I happen to thing she’s quite enjoying the attention), she should take ownership of her own behavior, which throughout has been vile and manipulative.
– Jeff Goldstein
proteinwisdom.com
As for me, I would like to take issue with the article’s claim that Frisch posted a single comment, and Frisch’s claim that her comments “weren’t threatening.” They have been excerpted on many sites. Let me just remind you of some of the things she said that “weren’t threatening”:
I’d like to hear more about your “tyke” by the way. Girl? Boy? Toddler? Teen? Are you still married to the woman you ephed to give birth to the tyke?
Tell all, bro!
…
[…] as I said elsewhere, if I woke up tomorrow and learned that someone else had shot you and your “tyke” it wouldn’t slow me down one iota. You aren’t “human” to me.
[…]
So if you could just tell me the AGE and SEX of your “tyke,” I’d be stoked!
Thanx!
…
Ooh. Two year old boy. Sounds hot. You live in Colorado, I see. Hope no one Jon-Benets your baby.
…
I reiterate: If some nutcase kidnapped your child tomorrow and did to her what was done to your fellow Coloradan, Jon-Benet Ramsey, I wouldn’t give a damn.
…
Give your pathetic progeny (I sure hope that mofo got good genes from his mama!) a big fat tongue-filled kiss from me! LOTS AND LOTS OF SALIVA from Auntie MOONBAT, if you don’t mind!
Somehow, Jeffy boy, I think you get off on the possibility of Frenching your pathetic progeny, even if it is a boy. You seem like a VERY, VERY sick mofo to me, bro.
Frisch has claimed that the last bit, about French-kissing Jeff’s two-year-old, was not hers:
People are posting snippets of what I posted that have been embellished with references to french kissing and other things I didn’t say.
The meme that she didn’t say these things is being accepted by some, including the serial Goldstein-hating obsessives at Sadly, No!
I asked Jeff to check his IP logs on this issue. He confirms that Frisch posted all of her comments from two IP addresses. The French-kissing comments came from one of them. He has posted a screenshot of his IP logs at his post responding to the article.
I agree with Jeff. We cannot let the truth be so twisted so that this woman becomes the victim.
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