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Politics

Friday Self-Immolation Link

Matt Welch | 1.16.2009 11:22 AM

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David Irving allows himself to be interviewed by Johann Hari.

Reason on Irving here.

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Matt Welch is an editor at large at Reason.

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  1. Warty   17 years ago

    Hitchens on Irving. I like his phrase to describe Irving: "not just a fascist historian but a great historian of fascism".

  2. Unsubstantive Kurt   17 years ago

    Wow.

    After reading the whole article, I can say only one thing: "I nominate this guy for Douche of the Decade".

  3. Warren   17 years ago

    That was... disquieting. Kind of like doing an archeological dig in a bog. The only thing I really wanted to know, about where the money was coming from, never got answered.

    Is he running some sort of scam? If so, who's he scamming? How's he doing it? I can't believe it's royalties and speaking fees.

  4. lefty   17 years ago

    David Irving is one very sick fuck. If it's all for show, he's fooled us. But there's enough evidence in the interview that he's twisted. Very twisted. Go to hell David Irving and don't enjoy the trip.

  5. Xeones   17 years ago

    What a sad, sick little man. He oughtn't be silenced, of course, but like Warren said... disquieting.

  6. Lefiti   17 years ago

    Bad as he is, David Irving never published a series of racist newsletters under his name and then claimed he knew nothing about them. The right-wing "libertarian" hero Ron Paul did that.

  7. ChrisO   17 years ago

    Before I thought he was just a sad dupe. Now it's clear he's just plain old crazy. Which says a lot about anyone who would attend a conference where he's speaking etc.

  8. DADIODADDY   17 years ago

    not just a fascist historian but a great historian of fascism, "Douche of the Decade".
    sad, sick little man, very sick fuck, disquieting, sad dupe, plain old crazy

    let us know how you all really feel....

  9. Anon   17 years ago

    Oddly, I came away with the conclusion that it's even more bat-shit crazy if he's just doing it to get attention, and doesn't actually believe most of what he's saying - which seems like an awful possibility from what his siblings say about him.

  10. rob   17 years ago

    Lefiti - I think you somehow just "crypto-Godwin'd" yourself...

    Reading the Hitchens article made me think he's the crazy one... Who invites a loon over to the house and then leaves his wife and child to ride the elevator down with them so that he can sing racist doggerel at them?

    I can't believe how much of Hitchens' insanity his wife is willing to put up with!

    In Hitchens own words:

    "Later, my wife rather gravely asked me if I would mind never inviting him again. This was highly unlike her; we have all sorts at our place. However, it transpired that, while in the elevator, Irving had looked with approval at my fair-haired, blue-eyed daughter, then 5 years old, and declaimed the following doggerel about his own little girl, Jessica, who was the same age:

    I am a Baby Aryan
    Not Jewish or Sectarian;
    I have no plans to marry an
    Ape or Rastafarian.

    The thought of Carol and Antonia in a small space with this large beetle-browed man as he spouted that was, well, distinctly creepy. (He has since posted the lines on his Web site, and they came back to haunt him at the trial.)"

  11. Xanthippas   17 years ago

    Wow. It's almost possible to feel sorry for a man who is so aged and so deluded, at least until you are reminded exactly what it is he believes and what that sort of thing has always and always will lead to. Still, it would seem that the persecution he has endured, which he appears to have eagerly sought out, has only solidified his beliefs. He is one truly ill man.

  12. zoltan   17 years ago

    I am a Baby Aryan
    Not Jewish or Sectarian;
    I have no plans to marry an
    Ape or Rastafarian.

    Wow, David Irving really is stupid for not realizing that all humans are apes. What a moh-ron.

  13. Meh   17 years ago

    If your not careful, you are going to upset Libertymike.

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