… for making me feel less alone with my dark thoughts, and for always coming to the defense of freedom of speech.

This time the subject is Ayaan Hirsi Ali (whom I have written about here, here, here, here, and here), and her betrayal by people who should know better.

Hirsi Ali is no fundamentalist, Hitchens writes:

Garton Ash and Buruma would once have made short work of any apologist who accused the critics of the U.S.S.R. or the People’s Republic of China of “heating up the Cold War” if they made any points about human rights. Why, then, do they grant an exception to Islam, which is simultaneously the ideology of insurgent violence and of certain inflexible dictatorships? Is it because Islam is a “faith”? Or is it because it is the faith—in Europe at least—of some ethnic minorities? In neither case would any special protection from criticism be justified. Faith makes huge claims, including huge claims to temporal authority over the citizen, which therefore cannot be exempt from scrutiny. And within these “minorities,” there are other minorities who want to escape from the control of their ghetto leaders. (This was also the position of the Dutch Jews in the time of Spinoza.) This is a very complex question, which will require a lot of ingenuity in its handling. The pathetic oversimplification, which describes skepticism, agnosticism, and atheism as equally “fundamentalist,” is of no help here. [e.a.]

That bolded sentence points to the greatest injustice in Buruma’s and Garton Ash’s position: they allow Islamist thugs, theocrats, and hard-liners living in the West (with protection from our laws, because we don’t want to intrude on their “customs,” because we’re so damn polite and sensitive) to dominate, by terror and intimidation, Muslims who fled their homelands to escape precisely that kind of persecution. For me this is (for now) merely a somewhat abstract Orwellian nightmare as I contemplate this callous and stupid betrayal by people who, as I said, should know better.

However, for those Muslims living in Europe who wish to become—and to be considered—Europeans first and Muslims second, Buruma and Garton Ash’s intellectual position creates a Kafkaesque situation. They escaped horrors at home only to be confronted with the same horrors now here in the West … from which there is no escape. Ever. The hatch of freedom (the freedom for them to be 100% secular, like many Europeans, for example) is being closed. Voluntarily. By people who profited from those freedoms their entire lives, who continue to profit from them, but who deem them too dangerous to be placed in the care of the newly Enlightened.

Hitchens concludes:

But who dares to say [that First Amendment "absolutism" is] the same as the belief that criticism of religion should be censored or the belief that faith should be imposed? To flirt with this equivalence is to give in to the demagogues and to hear, underneath their yells of triumph, the dismal moan of the trahison des clercs and [Auden's] “enlightenment driven away.” Perhaps, though, if I said that my principles were a matter of unalterable divine revelation and that I was prepared to use random violence in order to get “respect” for them, I could hope for a more sympathetic audience from some of our intellectuals.

What’s the rush to get rid of printed books? asks Edward Tenner. They’re hard to create, even with today’s technology, and there’s value in scarcity: rare books are already becoming more valuable. Plus: you can use digital media to complement print and vice versa.

Upshot—there’s life in them printed books yet. So it’s all good:

Despite the enduring positional advantage of print-plus-Web over Web-only, Internet authorship of all kinds will also continue to flourish as a counterbalance to conventional media. Yes, the Web might be promoting a pseudodemocracy harking back to the class society of Victorian England, when W.S. Gilbert’s Grand Inquisitor lampooned ordinary Britons’ dreams of glory in The Gondoliers: “When everybody’s somebody, then no one’s anybody.”

But empowerment isn’t entirely an illusion. To balance the cleric’s dour judgment, we should recall the cheerier conclusion of the Dodo in Alice in Wonderland: “Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.”

Well, I wouldn’t go that far. But even though I’m the author of the slogan If You Love Books, Set Them Free (TM) and I long for books to be available digitally as print-on-demand (especially those many, many books that have been out of print forever, are lost to book lovers and scholars, and deserve to be available), I know there’s plenty of room in the marketplace for books in all forms—certainly including print. People long for knowledge, want information, and crave stories. They read. Give them what they want, and they will come back for more.

And at least one publisher seems to realize that there is marketing potential for lavish, expensive, illustrated versions of previous bestsellers: Today, Simon & Schuster announced a new edition of its massive hit 1776 by David McCullough:

“If history has a lesson, it’s that art more closely represents the essence of a civilization than does politics and the military.”

McCullough’s theory is brought to life in his new book, a deluxe edition of “1776″ that Simon & Schuster will publish this fall. Priced at $65, “1776: The Illustrated Edition” will feature an abridged text of McCullough’s 2005 best seller and numerous pictures and documents, including paintings by Gilbert Stuart and John Trumbull and replicas of maps and letters and an early draft of the Declaration of Independence.

“I hope it can mark a beginning of more of this kind of integration of art and history,” says McCullough, speaking from a hotel in St. Louis, where he was in the midst of a Midwestern lecture tour.

“I’ve tried, as much as I can, to encourage teachers to teach history this way — there’s nothing like the experience of holding a real letter or diary in your hands from a distant time. It’s the closest you can get to being in touch, having a tactile connection with those vanished people.”

The project was first suggested by Simon & Schuster, says McCullough, who embraced what he calls a “a new way to unfold what was the most important year and important war in our history.” Simon & Schuster’s publisher and executive vice president, David Rosenthal, says that he liked the idea of “1776″ as a “coffee table reference and browsing book” that would expand the appeal for a work of history that already has sold more than 2 million copies.

“1776: The Illustrated Edition” has an announced first printing of 250,000.

You knew the honeymoon couldn’t last, right?

I bring you tidings of Rudy’s first goring, as of 9:30 p.m. on Google News:

On campaign swing, Giuliani questioned on relationship with son
San Diego Union Tribune, CA - 9 hours ago

Giuliani Seeks Privacy On Family Issues
CBS News, NY - 9 hours ago

Giuliani: Give my family some privacy
Newsday, NY - 14 hours ago

• Giuliani’s son says he doesn’t want to help his father campaign
CNN International - 16 hours ago

Rudy: Not her fault
Newsday, NY - 17 hours ago

Rudy Giuliani Asks for Privacy Over Questions About Relationship …
FOX News - Mar 5, 2007
Giuliani Estranged From His 2 Children
CBS News, NY - Mar 5, 2007

Giuliani’s son no campaign trouper
ImediNews, Georgia - 3 hours ago

Rudy Defends Judi After Family Estrangement Goes Public
MyFox Washington DC, DC - 9 hours ago

Giuliani Takes Blame For Estrangement From His Kids
NY1, NY - 11 hours ago

Giuliani Seeks Privacy Amid Reports Of Family Rift
CBS 5 - Green Bay, WI - 13 hours ago

Here’s the bottom line:

Giuliani’s Son Puts Him In An Uncomfortable Spotlight
ABC30.com, CA - Mar 5, 2007

We’ll see how “sticky” the story is. If people are still talking about Giuliani’s family issues a month from now, it’ll be a problem.

Still, after all that whining about how long this damn campaign is going to be, I’m rather beginning to enjoy myself.

This ganja’s for burning:

Palestinian security forces burn marijuana plants after they were confiscated in the West Bank town of Halhoul near Hebron March 5, 2007. REUTERS/Nayef Hashlamoun (WEST BANK)

Hamas thug Meshal reassures A’jad that he was only kidding when he said that Saudi Arabia’s $1 billion was most generous but that he expects $2 billion from Iran in order to keep “resisting” Israel.

Or you could believe what Ha’aretz is reporting (which is couched in more acceptable journalismese:

Meshal on Tuesday extracted from Iran a pledge to fund his radical Palestinian movement to compensate for the West’s financial blockade of the Palestinian government.

Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said, was quoted by the Iranian news agency ISNA as saying, “Iran has announced its support for the creation of a national unity government from the Mecca negotiations.”

I think I’ll make this a recurring feature. Today’s winner is Nick Kristof, for this gem:

Our biggest mistake since World War II has been a lack of sensitivity to other people’s nationalism, from Vietnam to Iraq.

Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian “moderate” (and Christian), hasn’t been heard from lately. Like all the other familiar figures from Arafat’s regime, she has disappeared from view. Her main claim to fame on the world stage has been her relentless screaming about the evil Israelis. Just before 9/11, she was part of the August 2001 Durban gang which announced that Zionism is racism.

Today, suddenly, she makes an appearance in the New York Times. She seems to be a bit nervous now that the religious absolutism of Hamas threatens her fondly held belief in the freedom of expression:

Many Palestinians have reacted with anger and concern after the Hamas-supervised Education Ministry removed from school libraries an anthology of Palestinian folk tales, reportedly because of mild sexual innuendo, The Associated Press reported. The ban fed fears that Hamas would use last year’s election victory to impose its hard-line interpretation of Islam on Palestinian territories. Hanan Ashrawi, an independent lawmaker and former cabinet minister, called the ministry’s action “outrageous,” adding, “If this is what is to come, it is extremely alarming.”

I’m so sorry for her trouble.