|
[Daniel Pipes: neoconservative, bigot and chickenhawk.]
Clogged Pipes
Posted by James Wolcott
Combing the sulphuric ash out of his Mephistophelean beard, gentleman scholar and hero of the "anti-idiotarian" right Daniel Pipes infects the pages of the New York Sun with a protracted sneer against Muhammed Ali. Pipes is appalled that Ali was presented at the White House with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bush. Had Bush only paid tribute to Ali's boxing exploits, Pipes wouldn't have minded, but the president swoonily lauded Ali's character and spirit. A sentiment shared by billions across the planet, but one that makes Pipes purse his lips in disdain. "In this giddy, fawning statement, Mr. Bush did not, the Washington Post astringently noted, 'mention Ali's very public opposition to the Vietnam War, which led the prizefighter to lose his boxing license for three years when he refused to serve in the Army.'" Well, why should the president mention it in a ceremony intended to honor and celebrate? No one stops the Kennedy Center Honors to take note of some honoree's stay in rehab, or messy divorce. It's not as if Ali's battle with the draft board and his temporary banishment from boxing are occult secrets. And where, pray tell, was Pipes during the Vietnam war? According to a profile in The Nation, he was darkening Cambridge Square. "It was the height of the Vietnam War, and young people everywhere were rebelling--but not Pipes. In April of 1969, his sophomore year, antiwar activists took over the main administrative building at Harvard. The university called in the police. Pipes recalls students gathering in the football stadium to debate the crisis, which dominated campus life for weeks. Pipes's group was among the smallest: He backed Harvard's administration and like his father [Sovietologist Richard Pipes] firmly supported the Vietnam War." Pipes firmly supported the Vietnam War, but not enough to enlist or submit to the draft. I believe the technical term is "chickenhawk." Of course, Ali's besetting sin in Pipes' beady eyes is not that he was a draft dodger, but that he was a Muslim and not a Pipes-approved Muslim. "[His] refusal to fight was not because he was 'a man of peace' but rather because his allegiance was to the stridently anti-American, anti-white organization known as the Nation of Islam, headed by the malign Elijah Muhammad." After a brief historical recap, Pipes really lets the mucus fly. "Mr. Bush's praise for Ali's compassion, charm, and beautiful soul are horribly misplaced (as were large donations from General Electric and Ford to the hagiographic 'Ali Center' that opened days later in Louisville, Ky.). Ali's unvarnished legacy is an exploitative personality, sordid career, vicious politics, and extremist religion.'" What miffs Pipes even more than Ali being a Muslim, an American icon, and, yes, The Greatest of All Time, is that Ali gently mocked Bush during the ceremony--making the crazy sign--and Bush didn't show enough manhood to put this Parkinson's victim in his place. No one the terrorists are running amuck in Iraq. "Awarding of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Muhammad Ali gratuitously celebrated a man profoundly opposed to Mr. Bush's own, his party's, and the country's principles," Pipes seethes. Actually, Bush's honoring of Ali is one of the most commendable deeds he's done in his calamitous presidency. And until Mr. Pipes gets his own country, it isn't for him to decree whether or not Muhammed Ali is an affront to America's principles. Who made this pissant dictator? Nitpicker has more. 11.29.05 6:46PM Search the archives for political-research at http://www.terazen.com/ Subscribe to the RSS feed for political-research at http://rss.groups.yahoo.com/group/political-research/rss
SPONSORED LINKS
YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS
|
