Alan Dershowitz Kvetches About Martha’s Vineyard — And The Internet Laughs At Him
Alan Dershowitz. Image by getty images
By PJ Grisar July 3, 2018
Alan Dershowitz had a thing or two to say about liberals pestering Trump administration officials. At least that’s what he claimed he was talking about.
The bulk of the legal eagle’s latest oped is really more about how Dershowitz’s friends in Martha’s Vineyard are “shunning” him for his support of Trump on Fox News and elsewhere.
He even went so far as to compare his ill treatment with McCarthyism.
The internet had a field day.
Slate’s Matthew Dessem re-imagined the kvetch-sesh in the style of William Earnest Henley’s poem “Invictus” with such choice lines as:
“When invitations don’t arrive/I have not winced or cried aloud./Watching my social prospects dive,/My head is bloody, but unbowed.”
and
“Beyond the ferry to Oak Bluffs/Loom lonely days and lonely nights,/Because when things start getting tough,/I call my friends McCarthyites.”
New York Times opinion writer Wajahat Ali added some savage perspective.
What kind of world do we live in when Alan Dershowitz gets side eyes at Martha’s Vineyard and Sarah Sanders is politely asked to leave a Red Hen restaurant? The end of civility. The end of decency. The end of righteous outrage. Oh, look another baby ripped from his parents…
— Wajahat Ali (@WajahatAli) July 2, 2018
The Washington Post’s Alexandra Petri made a sartorial crack in the vein of the Vineyard Vines clothing brand.
when Alan Dershowitz arrives at the Vineyard all the little whales on people’s shorts pointedly turn in the other direction
— Alexandra Petri (@petridishes) July 3, 2018
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes thought it was a gag at first.
HAHAHAHA. I thought the Dershowitz op-ed about being shunned on Martha’s Vineyard was some weird twitter meme and NOT AN ACTUAL COLUMN HE WROTE DOWN AND PUBLISHED.
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) July 2, 2018
Few people took Dershowitz’s side. So the semi-retired Harvard Law prof served as his own defense against the Twitter shamers.
(1/2) I’m reveling not whining. I’m proud of taking an unpopular, principled position that gets me shunned by partisan zealots. It’s not about me. I couldn’t care less about being shunned by such people. It’s about their unwillingness to engage in dialogue.
— Alan Dershowitz (@AlanDersh) July 3, 2018
(2/2) It’s bad enough when college students demand trigger warnings and safe spaces to avoid hearing views with which they disagree. But it’s worse when it comes from professors and media people. It’s a dangerous sign of the times.
— Alan Dershowitz (@AlanDersh) July 3, 2018
The irony of course is, there don’t seem to be many safe spaces left for Dershowitz.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
