"It’s clear to me that [university authorities] haven’t transgressed here. You can debate who you ought to be sympathetic with..."

"... but in my own mind, I am confident that the students have no First Amendment claim to stay in that space."

Said Columbia lawprof Vincent A. Blasi, "who has spent decades studying civil liberties issues, said the university had articulated a 'reasonable' policy to govern protests and had every right to punish students who violate it," quoted in "Faculty Group at Columbia Says It Has ‘Lost Confidence’ in the President/The campus chapter of a faculty organization said it would 'fight to reclaim our university.' Students were undeterred by the crackdown on their protest" (NYT).

Of course, the university doesn't have to do everything within its power.

"For decades now, we’ve watched as campus administrators from coast to coast have constructed... a network of speech codes, bias response teams, safe spaces and glossaries of microaggressions..."

"... that are all designed to protect students from alleged emotional harm. But not all students. When, as a student at Harvard Law School, I was booed and hissed and told to 'go die' for articulating pro-life or other conservative views, exactly zero administrators cared about my feelings. Nor did it cross my mind to ask them for help. I was an adult. I could handle my classmates’ anger. Yet how sensitive are administrators to student feelings under other circumstances? I had to chuckle when I read my colleague Pamela Paul’s excellent column on the Columbia School of Social Work and she quoted a school glossary that uses the term 'folx.' Why spell the word with an 'x'? Because some apparently believe the letter 's' in 'folks' renders the term insufficiently inclusive. I kid you not...."The rule cannot be that Jews must endure free speech at its most painful, while favored campus constituencies enjoy the warmth of college administrators and the protection of campus speech codes.... "

Writes David French, in "What the University Presidents Got Right and Wrong About Antisemitic Speech" (NYT).

French concludes (and I agree): "[P]rotect students from harassment... But do not protect students from speech.... The answer to campus hypocrisy isn’t more censorship. It’s true liberty. Without that liberty, the hypocrisy will reign for decades more."

"It honestly seems like it was written by a teenage Tumblr user who, having come into contact with some new and exciting ideas about social justice, seeks to impose them widely and lecture perceived wrongdoers gleefully."

Writes Jill Filipovic, in "Hamline University’s Controversial Firing Is a Warning/Insistence that others follow one’s strict religion is authoritarian and illiberal no matter what the religion is" (Slate). She's talking about a statement written by Hamlin University President Dr. Fayneese S. Miller. 

Filipovic continues:

"Do they make a 'safe space' from the 'woke mob?'"

Do they make a ‘safe space’ from the ‘woke mob?’

— Sean Ono Lennon (@seanonolennon) June 27, 2020

ADDED: Both "safe space" and "woke mob" have to do with the exclusion of voices that you don't want to hear, so these ideas are not necessarily in contradiction, but the wokeism of today undervalues the desire for safety. That's because of the direction from which the threat to safety comes. The "woke mob" would like everyone to feel unsafe from the charge of racism. And the "safe space" was always only for some people, for some reasons.

"The New York Times announced Sunday that Editorial Page Editor James Bennet is resigning — amid reports of anger inside the company over the publication of an op-ed from Sen. Tom Cotton..."

"... about the George Floyd unrest last week. Bennet, the brother of 2020 White House candidate Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., had apologized late last week after previously defending the piece, titled, 'Send in the Troops.' Cotton, R-Ark., called for the government to deploy troops as a last resort to help quell riots and looting that emerged amid the anger over Floyd's death in Minneapolis police custody last month. The publication sparked a revolt among Times journalists, with some saying it endangered black employees. Some staff members called out sick Thursday in protest, and the Times later announced that a review found the piece did not meet its standards.... 'Last week we saw a significant breakdown in our editing processes, not the first we've experienced in recent years,' [Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger wrote]. 'James and I agreed that it would take a new team to lead the department through a period of considerable change.'"

Fox News reports.

ADDED: NYT writer Bari Weiss has some very useful commentary at Twitter:

The civil war inside The New York Times between the (mostly young) wokes [and] the (mostly 40+) liberals is the same one raging inside other publications and companies across the country. The dynamic is always the same.  The Old Guard lives by a set of principles we can broadly call civil libertarianism. They assumed they shared that worldview with the young people they hired who called themselves liberals and progressives. But it was an incorrect assumption. The New Guard has a different worldview, one articulated best by @JonHaidt and @glukianoff. They call it "safetyism," in which the right of people to feel emotionally and psychologically safe trumps what were previously considered core liberal values, like free speech.

It's interesting that people who made safety so overwhelmingly important would accept rioting and vehemently oppose government's protecting citizens from the forces of chaos.

"More than 550 new words, senses, and sub-entries have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary in our latest update, including mentionitis, awesomesauce, safe space, and shticky."

The OED announces.

Wow, they stooped to "awesomesauce"! The earliest published use of "awesomesauce" was in a usenet discussion of a Taco Bell ad in 2001:

2001 Re: Shadowy Men in Taco Bell Ad! in alt.tv.kids-in-hall (Usenet newsgroup) 22 Sept. You guys are awesomesauce.

And then there's Twitter:

2009 @BKanizay 25 Nov. in twitter.com (O.E.D. Archive) Awesomesauce!!! The Muppets sing Bohemian Rhapsody. The most awesome thing you'll see today.

What makes the word a dictionary-worthy part of the language is its normalization in things like this:

2018 Woman's Era (India) (Nexis) 1 Apr. For enthusiastic travellers as well as passionate music lovers, this assorted mix of the most awesomesauce music carnivals are worth travelling for.

"Mentionitis," a word I've never noticed, though it's completely easy to understand. The only question is what sets it apart from all the other instant coinages that use "-itis"? Asking that, I have questionitis — questionitis on top of my bloggeritis, etc. etc. "Mentionitis" went through a journey. It originally was more about being fastidiously comprehensive, but it now means "a tendency towards repeatedly or habitually mentioning something, esp. the name of a person one is attracted to or infatuated with, regardless of its relevance to the topic of conversation." The reason "mentionitis" is in the OED, though, isn't because the OED is obsessed with mentioning all coinages to be comprehensive, but because it is associated with a pop culture character:

1999 H. Fielding Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason ii. 41 ‘It's Mentionitis,’ Jude was saying. ‘What's that?’ said Magda. ‘Oh, you know, when someone's name keeps coming up all the time, when it's not strictly relevant: “Rebecca says this” or “Rebecca's got a car like that”.’

"Shticky" you don't need a dictionary to understand once you know "shtick." I'll just observe that "shticky" feels usable because it's so close to "sticky." Or, actually, it's harder to use. You could be misunderstood. You just seem to be saying "sticky" with a speech impediment. Hint: Never say it, write it.

"Safe space" is "a place or environment in which people, esp. those belonging to a marginalized group, can feel confident that they will not be exposed to discrimination, criticism, harassment, or any other emotional or physical harm." The first use in writing has been discovered in 1974:

1974 Daily Independent-Jrnl. (San Rafael, Calif.) 26 Feb. 13/1 Miss Bernhardt believes she must make a safe place, a warm environment where there is trust, where people's identity is respected and where they will not have to perform or be judged... ‘Then it is safe to say something you have not said out loud to anyone... You have a safe space to try new things.’

What's the difference between "safe space" and "safe place"?

5 days ago, we were talking about a resolution in the Madison City Council that would "Designate City Council offices as a safe space, where all residents may enter and be safe and protected."

Threatening to veto the resolution, Mayor Paul Soglin said:

"The consequences of declaring the offices a safe space can be disastrous.... We have made the point that we are a sanctuary city. We are committed to justice. The law is on our side. Let us avoid a futile gesture that that may make us feel good but that does not add to the sanctity of our position and only creates enormous risk."

Today, the news is that the resolution has been rewritten to say — instead of "safe space" — "safe place."

The concern was always that people would misinterpret what the city was offering. I have no idea why changing "space" to "place" matters. I mean, "safe space" is a cultural buzz phrase, some kind of jargon, so it may take on meaning in a weird way or radiate political heat and stir up extra controversy. But to my English-as-a-first-language ear, "space" and "place" — when referring to specified rooms in a particular building — mean the same thing. The question is more what "safe" means. 

ADDED: The City Council meeting on the resolution is going on right now. You can stream it here.

The Madison City Council considers a resolution that would "Designate City Council offices as a safe space, where all residents may enter and be safe and protected."

The Wisconsin State Journal reports. There are other parts to the resolution, which is a reaction to President Trump's immigration policies, but this "safe space" business is screwy.

Mayor Paul Soglin called it "reckless":

“The consequences of declaring the offices a safe space can be disastrous.... We have made the point that we are a sanctuary city. We are committed to justice. The law is on our side. Let us avoid a futile gesture that that may make us feel good but that does not add to the sanctity of our position and only creates enormous risk."

Sanctity?? "Sanctity" means holiness. Maybe Soglin sees it as the adjective that goes with "sanctuary." [ADDED: Another — better? — word is "sanctimoniousness."]

City attorney Michael May said language on the Trump executive orders and safe place is new, but the rest of the proposal is existing policy and practice, even though some of what’s existing isn’t written down. The safe space language is so vague that it’s essentially “meaningless,” May said, adding, “I see it as aspirational.”

Well, that's certainly reassuring. The city's lawyer says it's meaningless.

Nothing like meaninglessness to make you feel safe.

"It is indescribably painful to see the death of our friends being used to attack the form of safety we have built in each other."

Says the letter from former residents of an Oakland warehouse arts institution, who are worried about the crackdown on artist collectives after the Ghost Ship fire.

"We are just a few days into a nightmare that is still unfolding," the letter said. "But already people outside of this community are calling for a crackdown on art spaces."

There's the safety imposed by outsiders — the safety of fire codes — and there's the safety collectivist artists have in each other — the safety of togetherness and low rent. 

"The atmosphere, the lighting, the spaciousness of that upstairs area, it felt like we were in a dream," said one San Francisco DJ:

"The reality is that people will make their art happen and will make these events happen, whether it's a safe space or not."

Safe space! 

The DJ repurposes a cultural buzz phrase.

ADDED: I'm picturing a movie, sold with a slogan like: Sometimes, the only safe space is the least safe space of all.

And I thought this poor girl was mistreated by the original NYT headline!

By "original," I mean the one I saw when I wrote the post yesterday: "How would you like to be the one person photographed to appear under the headline 'Political Divide on Campuses Hardens After Trump’s Victory'?" I said:

I had to laugh at this grim-faced young woman in her shadowy Ann Arbor bedroom, embodying post-election trauma for the NYT.

Oddly enough, this person was pro-Trump. She started out "ecstatic"....

But her mood of celebration quickly faded when students held an evening vigil on campus — to mourn the results — and her biology teacher suspended class on the assumption, Ms. Delekta said, that students would be too upset to focus.

She was outraged. “Nobody has died,” Ms. Delekta said. “The United States has not died. Democracy is more alive than ever. Simply put, the American people voted and Trump won.”

But click on the link to the article, and you'll see — at least if you're going there this minute — that the headline has become "On Campus, Trump Fans Say They Need ‘Safe Spaces.'" Now, the grim-faced young woman who let the NYT photographer into her bedroom looks like a big whiner who demanded a safe space! And she's the one who chided others for getting coddled:

She circulated an online petition and accused the university president of catering to the liberal majority by suggesting that “their ideology was superior to the ideology of their peers,” as she put it, when he sent out an email publicizing the vigil and listing counseling resources for students upset by the election. Three days later, she was invited to meet with the president in his office.

“I was completely shocked that he even read the letter,” she said. “That was definitely a new thing. It was very exciting.”

Quite aside from the distinct disservice to this particular 20-year-old individual, why is the new headline connecting the demand for "safe spaces" to the pro-Trump side? The first 5 paragraphs are about how Trump opponents were acting out grief and how the university administration was proactively offering psychological support (not "safe spaces," but counseling).

If we keep reading, do we ever encounter support for the proposition that it's the Trump fans who are demanding safe spaces?

There's a video from the woman in the first photo, Amanda Delekta, and she's talking about going to a biology class that began with the teacher saying she couldn't respect anyone who voted for Trump. Delekta only says there should be mutual respect within the shared space of the classroom, not that anything like a "safe space" must be provided.

There's the conclusory sentence:

Conservative students who voted for Mr. Trump say that even though their candidate won, their views are not respected. Some are adopting the language of the left, saying they need a “safe space” to express their opinions — a twist resented by left-leaning protesters.

"Safe space" is in quotes, but who is quoted? Where has this happened? And have "left-leaning protesters" really expressed resentment over this demand that I'm not sure has even been made?

Is this the fake news I've been hearing about?

I keep reading this long article, which is by Anemona Hartocollis, and I'm not finding anything to support the headline. Way down in the text there's this:

Ibtihal Makki, a self-confident senior in a pink hijab who is studying biopsychology and neuroscience and is chairwoman of a student government diversity committee, objected to conservatives on campus saying they needed safe spaces to express their views.

“To turn around and say that they need safe spaces after their candidate won I think is ironic and hypocritical,” Ms. Makki said.

In the past, she added, conservatives did not understand the need for safe spaces, “because they never needed it, because they don’t have any of the identities that made them feel that way.”

So it's hearsay from Makki?

White conservatives like Ms. Delekta...

Delekta is white? More hearsay. Does Delekta self-identify as white?

... Ms. Makki said, are not as vulnerable as someone with dark skin or who is wearing a hijab, because she cannot be identified as a conservative by any outward signs.

Okay, I get that Makki called Deletka a hypocrite, but did she have access to some quote from Deletka that isn't in the article or did the NYT reporter paraphrase Deletka's comments in a way that introduced the term "safe space" and elicited a reaction that got Makki to say what the reporter wanted said? These are very young people, Makki and Deletka, and it's wrong to use them to say something the reporter has decided ought to be said. If that's what happened, this is fake news.

By the way, Makki raised an interesting point that could have been further examined: People can be hated because of things they can't hide (like your race if you have a very dark or very light skin color) and because of things they can hide (like your race if you have a medium skin tone or your beliefs and opinions or your sexual orientation). But I wouldn't assume that it's easier when the attribute can be hidden. It's different to have a choice whether to be out and proud or to hide.

When it comes to political opinions, you can keep them to yourself, and the ballot is nicely secret. That left a lot of people hiding their support for Trump. Trump haters made it socially if not physically dangerous to openly support Trump, and so they laid the groundwork for the shock that came on election night.

Do you want political opinion to be out where you can see it and talk about it? Or do you want people to withhold their opinions? It seems to me that Delekta was saying: Let's have it out in the open. Let's have that marketplace ideas. We can be together. That's the opposite of a demand for a safe space.

And it seems that Makki is saying that she feels vulnerable because of things about her that she can't hide, even though she is choosing to wear religious garb. Is she saying because of her beliefs — which are inside her head — she feels threatened by what she uses her head to imagine is in Delekta's head? Where does all that get you? To a demand that everyone repress whatever they can because a few things — like very dark skin color — cannot be repressed?

I wish the article had explored some of these depths! Why not invite Delekta and Makki to sit down together and talk and see where they go instead of inducing one to talk about the other behind her back?

"When people told him it was a deathtrap, he would laugh. In Derick's mind he was creating this amazing art space..."

"... and everything going on there was the most amazing thing ever."

Said one friend of the captain of the so-called Ghost Ship, where at least 33 people died in a fire Friday night. The man, who sublet space in the rented warehouse, is Derick Ion Almena, who reacted to the fire with a Facebook post that is the most perverse display of sensitivity I have ever seen:

Confirmed. Everything I worked so hard for is gone. Blessed that my children and Micah were at a hotel and safe and sound…it's as if I have awoken from a dream filled with opulence and hope… to be standing now in poverty of self worth.

Here's a description of Almena's art space:

Visitors have described a squalid scene where cat faeces and used condoms litter the limited floor space, junk and 'art' is piled high in every room, nails protrude from stairs made out of old pallets, brick work crumbles in the walls and drug use rife among the party goers who came and went.

The photo of the place (from before the fire) looks like a perfect stage set for a tragicomedy about aging hippies:



In the upper right corner is a spider plush toy the size of a lamp shade. To the left is a sad, bowed-head figure that reminds me of the No Face character in the movie "Spirited Away."

Spirited away, in a vehicle called Ghost Ship.

ADDED:

So I was down there and I was having trouble finding the exit... the lower level is like a fucking maze. The stair room had three different exits and only one would have been the way to outside. Horrifying....

Some dude who had already gotten out stood right by the exit with all the billowing smoke and was repeatedly yelling "this is the exit" "exit." I can say without a doubt that that dude saved my life. If he wasn't there yelling I would have never found the exit and I probably would have died.

AND: From the comments at that "ADDED" link:

Today's the day I can read The Washington Post without hitting the paywall.

And what do I get? There was that puerile column about the Ohio State attacker, already blogged here.

Now, I'm poking around some more, and here's "I love your family. But I dread your joyous holiday letters."

After I finish the letter, I put it down on the coffee table, stare into space, open a bottle of wine and drink the whole thing. The next morning, the letter still splayed on the table, I realize it’s not just the image of a happy, still-together family that had unmoored me. It’s also the power of the record-keeping and the memories that such records evoke. I was never good at keeping records....

And here's "Does this haircut make me look like a Nazi?"

"You know, listen, I'm old fashioned about my entertainment. I just like to go to be entertained. If I want politics I'll go to a town hall meeting."

"I'll turn on cable news. There's lots of outlets you can go to get politics even the issues and ideas that you disagree with. A play for the vice president-elect of the United States who was there with his family to get booed tells you how far gone civility is in America.... This is the vice president-elect of the United States. They should want him to be successful. They should want his family to feel welcome in anywhere they go in the United States like everybody should want to feel welcomed anywhere in the United States. And it starts with a small thing like not booing the vice president-elect of the United States and not having a cast come out and lecture somebody who probably paid 800 bucks to be there.... I hope they give him his money back."

Said former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers on "State of the Union" yesterday.

I didn't think Pence should have been singled out and lectured to from the stage when the audience — which had booed him earlier — seemed so hostile. His physical safety was in issue, and that introduced an element of intimidation and bullying that the people behind the show probably didn't intend but should have been more sensitive about. The people in the audience who booed were creepy and cowardly — in their safe space and (probably) believing themselves to be the good people.

But Mike Rogers sounds like a fool talking about the theater as a place that owes you politics-free entertainment — where you pay your money and they owe you a pleasant, happy, relaxing time. Whose theory of theater is that? Rogers calls himself "old fashioned" as if he's relying on a traditional view of the role of theater in human culture, but where the hell did he get that?

Even shows aimed at children raise unsettling matters that question and challenge the audience about things that can be political. I'm not going to go down the rathole of the politics of "The Lion King." And you can, on your own time, read this New Yorker article, "The Politics of 'Annie.'" ("[Annie] wanders into a Hooverville—a shantytown whose jobless denizens (proto-Occupiers?) sing a sarcastic ode to the outgoing President....")

But "Hamilton" is a musical that is on its face about politics. How in hell could it be a night of lightweight, relaxing amusement? That wouldn't be good. You have to be lying or a fool to assert that you paid for tickets to "Hamilton" and felt entitled to a politics-free experience.

And Rogers slotted in an appeal to "civility." You know what I always say: Appeals to civility are always bullshit. Rogers himself is doing politics, and if the politics cut the other way he'd be praising free speech and parsing the language of the from-the-stage lecture for respectful intelligence. 

(For what it's worth: Mike Rogers was kicked off the Trump transition team last week.)

On the UW–Madison campus last night, student activists obstructed the speech — by conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro — "Dismantling Safe Spaces: Facts Don’t Care About Your Feelings."

There were about 20 protesters, Wisconsin Watchdog reports:

Shapiro, invited to speak by the UW’s Young Americans for Freedom and Young America’s Foundation, got through his introduction and then all hell broke loose.

The demonstrators stood up and chanted, “Safety! Safety! Safety,” interrupting Shapiro’s address...

The protesters, including children, constantly interrupted Shapiro’s speech, which in part was on why “diversity doesn’t matter, decency matters.”

“Shame! Shame! Shame!” chanted the leftists in response....

Shapiro mocked the practice of wearing of safety pins to protest the election of Trump:

“They started wearing safety pins. They can wear them with this diaper,” Shapiro said, in a jab at the sentiment.

“You want to wear a swastika?” a safe space protester shouted.

Shapiro is Jewish, and he taunted back.

Campus police watched but did nothing to stop the interruptions. At one point, they looked on as the protesters stormed the stage and continued their chants. Shapiro was told by police that they were instructed not to stop the demonstrators, who made their intentions to disrupt clear on Facebook days before the speech.

Local conservative radio talk show host Vicki McKenna was there.

Upon leaving the event, she was surrounded by demonstrators. They shouted all kinds of vile things at the talk show host, the kind of offensive, “war on women” words for which liberals castigated Trump. One protester even charged that McKenna was responsible for the murder of a University of Wisconsin-Stout student from Saudi Arabia.

“The black supremacists mob shout me down–all 5’3″ &48 years old of me–and UW cops try to move ME away because I am the THREAT Film at 11!” McKenna wrote on Twitter.

The Badger Herald has an article with pictures and video of the protest and the crowd's response to the protest. Here's the harrowing and NSFW video McKenna's team shot after the event.

ADDED: Here's the University's official statement. Excerpt:

The university worked to ensure the event would be safe and provide a forum for both the speaker and those dissenting with his statements to express their views, by meeting with organizers and protesters, along with providing security for the event....

I'd like to see a statement on how the university police treated Vicki McKenna. Why was she pushed out when she was trying to cover the news and she was the one being subjected to physical intimidation?

"They are actually pushing me out the door for having a different perspective," said the "liberal studies" professor.

Michael Rectenwald, 57, is on paid leave, he says, for what he wrote pseudonymously on Twitter. Beginning in mid-September, calling himself Deplorable NYU Prof, Rectenwald tweeted about campus things like safe spaces, trigger warnings, and Halloween costumes. For example, about the costumes, he tweeted: "The scariest thing about Halloween today is . . . the liberal totalitarian costume surveillance. NYU RAs gone mad." (RAs had put out a flyer about avoiding offensive Halloween costumes.)

Speaking of costumes, a pseudonym on Twitter works as a kind of costume, a disguise, allowing someone to inhabit a character. Twitter, with a pseudonym, can be a safe space for the writer, who has a real-world reputation and relationships to protect as he works out his transgressive ideas in public.

But Rectenwald was not outed. He chose to unmask himself, to connect the tweets with his name. He gave an interview to the student newspaper, Washington Square News. Two days later:

A 12-person committee calling itself the Liberal Studies Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Working Group, including two deans, published a letter to the editor in the same paper.

“As long as he airs his views with so little appeal to evidence and civility, we must find him guilty of illogic and incivility in a community that predicates its work in great part on rational thought and the civil exchange of ideas,” they wrote of the untenured assistant professor. 

I don't see any "illogic." Maybe "liberal studies" is a field where "logic" is used loosely. I can see that "liberal" is used loosely. As for civility... well, you know I have a tag for that: civility bullshit. It represents my belief that demands for civility are always bullshit — not really about a neutral value but an effort to get your opponents to tone it down.

Anyway, Rectenwald says the dean and an HR representative met with him and "expressed concern about [his] mental health" and wanted him to "leave and get help." An NYU spokesman asserts that the leave does not have anything to do with the tweeting and his opinions. Perhaps the university means that it's not reacting to the substance of the ideas in the words, but the words as evidence of insanity. That would deserve comparison to the political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union.

Slate/Inside Higher Ed has an article by Colleen Flaherty on Rectenwald's predicament. I see there that Rectenwald says he is a communist and that he diagnoses the university community as insane:

Identity politics, over all, Rectenwald told the [student] newspaper, “have made an infirmary of the whole damn campus. Let’s face it: every room is like a hospital ward. What are we supposed to do? I can’t deal with it—it’s insane.” 

So what does this have to do with Donald Trump? The student newspaper interview asked that question because "deplorable" in the pseudonym made him seem like a Trump supporter (something he admits he intended to do). Rectenwald answered:

I don’t support Trump at all. I hate him — I think he’s horrible. I’m hiding amongst the alt-right, alright? And the point is, this character is meant to exhibit and illustrate the notion that it’s this crazy social-justice-warrior-knee-jerk-reaction-triggered-happy-safe-space-seeking-blah, blah, blah, blah culture that it’s producing this alt-right. Now, I’m not dumb enough to go there. And my own politics are very strong — I’m a left communist. But I think that in fact, the crazier and crazier that this left gets, this version of the left, the more the more the alt-right is going to be laughing their asses off plus getting more pissed. Every time a speaker is booed off campus or shooed off campus because they might say something that bothers someone, that just feeds the notion that the left is totalitarian, and they have a point....

Rectenwald chose to create an alternate identity on Twitter, to "hid[e] this character in the alt-right" — "because otherwise, the social justice warriors are going to come onto me like flies, and they can be so extreme... It’s a nightmare." That is, he's a lefty, criticizing lefties, but he wanted to disguise himself as a righty. Talk about costumes! When do we get to inhabit someone else's identity?

Quite aside from what's permissible and what deserves punishment — I'd say it's all permissible and unpunishable — when is it effective for a speaker to appear to stand on the opposite side from his true ideology? Does the speaker really know himself? Rectenwald seems pretty certain he's a communist and that the alt-right was his mask. That puts him in the tradition of mobys and false flag operations. But there are far more subtle situations, like this blog you are reading now.

"This museum tells the truth that a country founded on the principles of liberty held thousands in chains."

"Even today, the journey towards justice is not compete. But this museum will inspire us to go farther and get there faster."

Said George W. Bush, appearing today, along with President Obama and Chief Justice Roberts, at the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Nice picture at the link of Michelle Obama warmly hugging Bush.

Here's Time Magazine's transcription of what Obama said. Excerpt:

This is the place to understand how protests and love of country don’t merely coexist, but inform each other. How men can probably win the gold for their country, but still insist on raising a black-gloved fist. How we can wear an I Can’t Breathe T-shirt, and still grieve for fallen police officers. Here, the American wear the razor-sharp uniform of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, belongs alongside the cape of the Godfather of Soul.

We have shown the world we can float like butterflies, and sting like bees, that we can rocket into space like Mae Jemison, steal home like Jackie, rock like Jimmy [sic!], stir the pot like Richard Pryor. And we can be sick and tired of being sick and tired like Fannie Lou Hamer, and still rock steady like Aretha Franklin....

I, too, am America. It is a glorious story, the one that’s told here. It is complicated, and it is messy, and it is full of contradictions, as all great stories are, as Shakespeare is, as Scripture is. And it’s a story that perhaps needs to be told now more than ever.

Obama doesn't mention Donald Trump, but last week, Obama said:

"You may have heard Hillary's opponent in this election say that there's never been a worse time to be a black person. I mean, he missed that whole civics lesson about slavery or Jim Crow.... But we've got a museum for him to visit, so he can tune in. We will educate him."

It would, in fact, be a good idea for Trump to visit the museum, but I've got to say that Obama distorted Trump's statement. Trump did not say "there's never been a worse time to be a black person." That's Obama's paraphrase. Trump said:

"We're going to rebuild our inner cities because our African-American communities are absolutely in the worst shape that they've ever been in before. Ever. Ever. Ever... You take a look at the inner cities, you get no education, you get no jobs, you get shot walking down the street. They're worse -- I mean, honestly, places like Afghanistan are safer than some of our inner cities."

It's a statement about "African-American communities." A slave was not living in an "African-American community." And Jim Crow was an evil system of exclusion, but to say that is not to understand what life was like in the communities where black people did live. I understand the political motivation for paraphrasing Trump's remark the way Obama did, but that paraphrase pretends not to see what Trump was saying. It's much harder — and much more important — to try to refute Trump's inflammatory statement if you're precise about what he said. And even if you did amass the historical and present-day journalistic record to refute it, why would you be smug?

The University of Chicago picks vibrant free speech over insulating sensitivities.

It's getting celebrated on the internet for this letter it sent new students:

Welcome and congratulations on your acceptance to the college at the University of Chicago. Earning a place in our community of scholars is no small achievement and we are delighted that you selected Chicago to continue your intellectual journey.

Once here you will discover that one of the University of Chicago’s defining characteristics is our commitment to freedom of inquiry and expression. … Members of our community are encouraged to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn, without fear of censorship. Civility and mutual respect are vital to all of us, and freedom of expression does not mean the freedom to harass or threaten others. You will find that we expect members of our community to be engaged in rigorous debate, discussion, and even disagreement. At times this may challenge you and even cause discomfort....

Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so called ‘trigger warnings,’ we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces’ where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.

Nice branding, University of Chicago!

Hillary Clinton has "a comprehensive plan to defeat and destroy ISIS and keep America safe"?

That's the question I asked out loud as I watched Leon Panetta's speech last night.

I found this fact-checking at CBS:

Clinton has been touting her plan for months. It's hardly comprehensive.The three-part strategy, as described in November, involves crushing IS "on its home turf" in the Middle East, disrupting terrorist infrastructure on the ground and online, and protecting America and its allies. All are elements already included in Obama's anti-IS strategy. And none addresses the biggest gaps in the U.S.-led response to the Islamic State over the last two years, such as the lack of effective local troops to defeat IS in Syria. At what point should U.S. ground troops step in? What levels of civilian deaths are acceptable? How exactly does she propose to end Iraq's age-old Shiite-Sunni divisions? She hasn't said. She's expounded further, but mostly to reject suggestions by Trump and other Republicans.

And here's the full text from last November:  "The strategy Clinton outlined hinges on three main elements – defeating ISIS in Syria, Iraq, and across the Middle East; disrupting and dismantling the growing terrorist infrastructure that facilitates the flow of fighters, financing, arms, and propaganda around the world; and hardening our defenses and those of our allies against external and homegrown threats."

How will Clinton and Trump and their proxies talk about the Orlando shooting/terrorism?

We saw how the different political candidates talked about the San Bernardino massacre, which happened last December. As I remember it, roughly, Clinton and Obama centered on guns and lectured us about the need for gun control, and Republicans talked about immigration policy and Islamic extremism.

Now, closer to the election, what framework will be imposed? Something was learned from the politics around San Bernardino and the primary season is over, so I suspect that Democrats will not choose to emphasize gun control (unless this turns out to have been a lone mentally ill person). The Democrats may try to use the idea of an attack on a gay club to criticize Donald Trump for creating a divisive atmosphere of hate, even though none of his alleged hate-mongering has been about gay people. As for what Trump and his proxies will say, it depends on who the murderer turns out to be.

I'm going to watch all the Sunday morning talk shows, and I will update this post as I hear various statements. The previous post is for comments about the terrible incident itself. Forgive me for being so brutal as to go immediately to the effect on presidential politics, but please keep the comments here to this topic, which I think is important because — like the San Bernardino massacre (and even more than it) — this event is a skewing point in electoral politics, and everyone speaking for the campaigns knows it. Sympathy will be expressed, along with warnings to wait to hear the facts, but the politics are underway, and I'm going to tell you about what everyone does on the TV shows this morning.

1. "State of the Union" with Jake Tapper devoted nearly the entire show to news coverage of the event. In the final 5-minute segment. Tapper displayed the tweets from Donald Trump — "Really bad shooting in Orlando. Police investigating possible terrorism. Many people dead and wounded." — and Hillary Clinton — "Woke up to hear the devastating news from FL. As we wait for more information, my thoughts are with those affected by this horrific act. -H" Tapper noted that the "H" at the end of a tweet on Hillary Clinton's account indicates that "she herself wrote that tweet." After that the guest is the Republican Congressman Peter King, who knows the name of the shooter but won't say it and knows of indications of "Islamist leanings," but the discussion was focused on the facts of the incident.

2. "Fox News Sunday" with Bret Baier went straight to politics, with Senator Jeff Sessions as the Trump proxy and Senator Amy Klobuchar as the Clinton proxy. Sessions, asked about the Orlando incident, said it "certainly looks like... Islamic extremism" and stressed the need to "openly and directly" confront the extremist element within Islam, including restricting immigration. Baier prompted him to connect the incident to guns and to Clinton's support for gun control, and Sessions slotted in his talking point about the Supreme Court and the supposed precariousness of the Second Amendment individual right to bear arms. Klobuchar emphasized waiting for more information and the importance of not seeming to accuse all Muslims (and she credited Sessions for having said the same thing). She brought up guns only when Baier asked her, and then only to blandly reference common-sense limits that wouldn't infringe the gun rights that she assured us Clinton believes in.

3. "Meet the Press" began with news and news analysis, and that analysis went heavily into the subject of guns, how much damage one person could do in a crowded place with the kind of guns this murderer had. The name is now being said, Omar Mateen, and there are repeated references to the man's father saying that his son was recently enraged when he saw 2 men kissing. I get the sense that the show would like to forefront hatred of gay people and minimize the significance of his religion, which is Muslim. The show switches over to Chuck Todd with the this set up: "Obviously, there are many elements to the story, we don't want to play the politics too much... but obviously, this will play into the presidential elections." That's not in the official show transcript (here). I guess the show got re-edited. Todd credits Trump and Clinton with being low key, but complains about the excessively political tweets of other, unnamed, politicians and homes in on gun control.

4. The "Face the Nation" time slot was straight news, no political spinning.

5. "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos had by far the most coverage of the presidential campaign, with a pre-recorded interview from Paul Ryan (that's worth discussing, but didn't cover the incident) and interviews with Trump's man Manafort and with Bernie Sanders. But there was a panel in the end — transcript —that eventually touched on the incident in the way that the second paragraph of this post anticipated. Katrina Vanden Heuvel was attacking Donald Trump for his "fear mongering and exploiting racial anxieties and bigotry" and, bringing up the Orlando incident, she said:

Donald Trump's idea of a counterterrorism program is banning all Muslims, bombing all families in the Middle East, essentially [sic] -- ISIS families, and torturing -- I think the, you know, grief and anger today. But we can't lose sight of senseless gun violence and the gun epidemic in this country. 66 people killed in Chicago in May. Hillary Clinton has a very strong gun control program. Trump, he's tethered to the NRA. I think that has to be...

When I heard that I said out loud, "That does not help Hillary." Then Donna Brazile followed on with generic references to "mass shootings" (and not terrorism), and I was saying "This isn't what Hillary wants to hear." That set up Bill Kristol, who prefaced his remark with "Look, I am anti-Trump" and proceeded with what I consider absolutely apt political analysis:

[I]f this was an act of Islamic terrorism, whether a lone wolf, or perhaps a lot of lone wolves turn out to have connection abroad one way or the other.... But if he was motivated by Islamist jihadist ideology, these talking points are not going to work, it's going to -- Donald Trump, the best moment, I say this with regret, the moment that helped Trump win the nomination was the San Bernardino massacre and his calling for a ban of all Muslims, which is an insane -- bad public policy, undoable, and we shouldn't do it. Having said that, it helped him. And I think we shouldn't kid ourselves. And, frankly, if these are the Democratic talking points here, senseless gun violence, it's not senseless.

It's not senseless. That's right. It's the sense of some people who have a specific ideology of hate and violence. Blaming the guns was the Democrats' instinctive move last December after the San Bernardino massacre, and it was the wrong choice politically. Hillary needs to set herself up as a resolute fighter against terrorism, and I think she will. Obviously, Trump will. It would be stupid to cede that ground to him. But real left-wingers like Katrina Vanden Heuvel — not helping Hillary —  head directly to the their anti-gun safe space.

ADDED: As noted above, what showed on "Meet the Press" for me wasn't the same as the transcript. I'm reading that now. There was a panel with Tom Brokaw, Hugh Hewitt, Amy Walter, and Joy Reid. Tom Brokaw went first and said it didn't matter whether the facts end up showing that the shooting was "connected to some kind of an international group," because, for him, the problem is guns. Hewitt focused on ISIS, but Walter and Reid stuck with the gun theme. When Hewitt said, "ISIS would do this to a hundred million Americans if they could," Reid rejoined: "But so would white nationalists."

Hillary says Trump had to be shamed into giving the money he bragged about to charity, while she, "of course," is responsible for "hundreds of millions of dollars" going to veterans.

She said:

I think the problem here is the difference between what Donald Trump says and what Donald Trump does. You know, he's bragged for months about raising $6 million dollars for veterans, and donating a million dollars himself, but it took a reporter to shame him into actually making his contribution, and getting money to veterans’ groups. I, of course, over the course of my life, I've not only donated personally, but I've worked to provide hundreds of millions of dollars over time to help our veterans by what I voted for, what I've worked for.

1. That word, shame.

2. She says "of course" as if we're familiar with her charitable contributions and charitable channeling toward veterans, but I don't know the details. Is the "of course" supposed to foreclose investigation, as if the facts about her are all already so very well known, since she is — of course! — the most vetted candidate for President who ever existed?

3. Vetted.  That word.

4. Since Hillary invited the comparison and made it central to a pointed attack on Trump — you don't have to attack a person over their charitable giving — the press should lay out the comparison for us. How much has Hillary Clinton "donated personally" to veterans groups and how, exactly, has she "worked to provide hundreds of millions of dollars over time to help our veterans by what I voted for"? Does she simply mean that as a Senator she voted for lots of appropriations of government money? And then, on her own, she's made some personal donations? How much?

5. How did Trump get everyone attacking him for making charitable contributions to veterans? It's so weird. And to be talking about shaming him about it... so very weird. Have we all lost our minds? Idea for anti-Trumpites: Trump is dangerous because of his strange power to make other people lose their mind.

6. Perhaps the press — in its dedication to helping Hillary — is luring her into saying things like this quote I'm focusing on. They make her too comfortable. Now, virtually all reporters will try to create a sense of comfort to get an interviewee to open up, and any sophisticated person should be wary, but Hillary knows they support her and want to help her, which makes her vulnerable, despite her intelligence and long experience, to saying things that really can be used against her.

7. Trump, by contrast, knows the press doesn't like him, and he's well-guarded. That irritates them and may lure them into saying too much, especially since they stick together in a like-minded group that's steeping in Trump-hate. Did you watch CNN yesterday afternoon? I did. The talking heads were chattering nonsense about Trump's press conference. They got each other going, as if they were in some therapy group. But it was on television. Television is not your safe space!