GUEST POST BY MICHAEL TOMASKY
Michael Tomasky’s editorial in The New Republic today. He’s right on all points.
TC
Almost everyone has been piling on that pitiful troika of elite university presidents after their congressional testimony on Tuesday. A few other folks, people I know and respect like Michelle Goldberg of The New York Times and Jay Michaelson of The Daily Beast, have added some valuable nuance, arguing that in context, the position the presidents were defending actually had merit.
I agree with the main points both made in their columns—in effect, that Republican Representative Elise Stefanik’s disingenuous grilling of the presidents, which conflated free speech with targeted harassment, set a trap that forced them to appear to equivocate about antisemitism. But I want to make a different point, one that is sharply critical of the presidents on different grounds. I was personally offended by their gross incompetence, and it wouldn’t bother me in the least if they were all fired simply for that reason (if any of them are forced out, of course, it won’t be for this reason).
Here’s what I mean. As the president of Harvard, Penn, or MIT, you are by definition one of America’s leading representatives of the liberal values of inquiry, critical thinking, science, anti-superstition, and, yes, free speech. On your home turf, you are confronted from time to time, or maybe more frequently than that, with situations in which some of these values come into conflict with each other, and you have to make a difficult decision. The national media, especially the right-wing media, is monitoring every move you make, every syllable you utter.
You exist, that is, at the center of an ideological tornado. You know this, or should. And you show up to Capitol Hill so unspeakably ill prepared that you—and your coterie of almost-certainly overpaid handlers—haven’t prepped for exactly the line of questioning that Stefanik pressed upon you? Indefensible.
A memorable moment in a 1988 presidential debate helps explain the key error the trio made. CNN anchor Bernard Shaw opened the proceedings by asking Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis about his opposition to the death penalty. “If Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered,” Shaw asked, “would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?”
Dukakis restated his opposition to the death penalty with all the ardor of someone reading the phone book (what’s a phone book, you ask?). The next day, some commentators criticized Shaw for being a little blunt, but mostly people laid into Dukakis for not saying something like: “First of all, Bernie, how dare you talk that way, even hypothetically, about my wife? You should be ashamed. And second of all, if I got my hands on the guy, they wouldn’t need the death penalty.”
Cheap? Theatrical? Sure. But it isn’t insane for people to want to see leaders show a little emotion about emotional things.
These presidents made the Dukakis error. They showed no emotion about one of the most emotional topics in the history of the human race, antisemitism. Harvard’s Claudine Gay said the right words, twice; she said hateful antisemitic speech was “personally abhorrent to me.” But she spoke with all the passion of someone giving a passerby directions to Widener Library.
What she and the others needed to do was show a little passion. Passion would communicate that this actually matters to them in a deep way. And they could still make the point they went on to make. It isn’t complicated. They could have said: “Congresswoman, antisemitism repulses me. When I hear someone say ‘gas the Jews,’ or when I watched those people march with those Nazi-like torches in Charlottesville in 2017, I shake with rage. I will never tolerate that on my campus. And yet, Congresswoman, universities must foster debate and allow free speech, even offensive, disgusting speech. Maybe you don’t understand this. I notice that your civil liberties and free speech vote ratings are nothing to write home about.” Boom: from defense to offense.
I know a lot of liberals will scoff at this point, but it’s quite serious. For better or worse we live in an age of theater, and right-wingers are just really good at theater. We must deal with reality as it is. Countless Americans, likely the majority, are getting their news in sound bites that elide context and nuance—on Fox News, yes, but also in 15-second videos on social media. How do we think that testimony has been playing on TikTok over the last three days?
It should go without saying, but I’ll say it all the same, that I obviously hold no brief for Stefanik. She’s a conscienceless fascist who was once a fairly reasonable conservative but took a sip from the poisoned MAGA chalice in 2016, and her career has been one long brownshirt rally ever since.
But the awfulness of her public persona just reinforces my main point. We are at war in this country. On the one side are the values embodied by Stefanik and Donald Trump and Steve Bannon and the soulless evangelical leaders who know exactly who Trump is but have elevated him to savior status because he wants to eradicate “vermin” like you and me. On the other side are the values represented, however imperfectly, by (among other institutions) our universities, great and not so great.
And if you’re on the liberal side, and you decide to waltz into the lion’s den, you had damn well better be ready. You are charged with defending a way of thinking and living that is under ceaseless attack, and you have a responsibility to represent that way of thinking and living for the rest of us who believe in it but don’t have the opportunity to appear before Congress. These presidents let half a country down, and for that, they should be ashamed.
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Have to agree that these Presidents were ill-prepared. Congressional interrogations are not like the old days where the person testifying was treated with the respect and the courtesy due their position. Tough questions for sure, but then the intent was to learn and draw conclusions about the positions before the committee. A college president walking into the den of MAGA could not have been more effete than the clips I saw. Every answer provided should have been preceded by a 5-second stare at the interrogator, as in What in the world are you asking such a question? And, Are you a moron? Maybe 7 seconds. Followed by an answer that has passion and values, probably to a question they had prepared to substitute into the record. Embarrassing as an act of political suicide.
At the risk of repetition, below is the Comment I posted at Robert Hubbell's newsletter, in response to his take on the testimony by the three university presidents, which reserved criticism for the university presidents, failing to note how they were sandbagged (and, yes, woefully unprepared, as Mr. Tomasky points out), with not a word of critique for Rep. Stefanik.
It is not evident in the extensive reporting on the subject of questioning by Elise Stefanik during the hearing Mr. Hubbell refers to in this post, that those writing about this event watched the video of Ms. Stefanik's questioning. I have provided medical-legal testimony hundreds of times and it requires extensive experience to respond appropriately when questioning is carried out in the tone and manner as exhibited by Ms. Stefanik. She utilizes the technique of rapid-fire delivery in an imperious tone which is intimidating to those with little experience being interrogated as a hostile witness would be. She also uses the technique of asking a long complicated question and demanding that it be answered yes or no. She also used the method of adding the word, "Correct?" at the end of a statement, thereby channeling the witness into endorsing how the interrogating party wishes to phrase things, rather than speak their own words. She also would interrupt the witness, which is intimidating and, frankly, disrespectful and bullying. In my view, Ms. Stefanik's questioning was not designed to explore or illuminate. It was designed to intimidate and sandbag the witness, and, reading the commentary about it, that proved successful.
This was Ms. Stefanik's first question to Dr. Gay that included the word "intifada": "You are president of Harvard, so I assume you are familiar with the term 'intifada', correct?" It is evident from the response that the witness was not familiar with the term. She said, "I have heard that term, yes."
Having heard a word and being "familiar" with it are two different things. Beyond that, being familiar with a word does not mean that a person is intimately aware of the precise definition of it. Therefore, Dr. Gay did not express familiarity - she only said she had heard it, which allows that she might not be familiar with the meaning of it.
Ms. Stefanik than asserted, "And you understand that the use of the term 'intifada' in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict is indeed a call for violent, armed resistance against the state of Israel including violence against civilians and the genocide of Jews. Are you aware of that?"
First, that characterization of the use of the word intifada is not accurate, since the word refers to a wide variety of actions resisting military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza following the 1967 war, and considered illegal under international law since that time, and the right of occupied populations to resist that occupation is recognized as legitimate. The first intifada, which began in 1987, was predominantly peaceful, for example (the first suicide bombing, for example, did not place until 1993), and the violence that did occur in the first 13-months of the first intifada brought about the deaths of 12 Israelis and 332 Palestinians.
Therefore, Dr. Gay's answer should have been that Ms. Stefanik's characterization of "intifada' as synonymous with a call for genocide of Jews was inaccurate.
Instead, Dr. Gay replied, "That type of personal speech is personally abhorrent to me." That answer is tangential and does not endorse that Ms. Stefanik's characterization of the meaning of the word "intifada" was correct.
Ms. Stefanik then said, "And there have been multiple marches at Harvard with students chanting. 'There is only one solution, intifada revolution', and 'globalize the intifada', is that correct?" Dr. Gay replied, "I have heard that thoughtless, reckless and hateful language on our campus, yes."
Here, Ms. Stefanik has effectively sandbagged Dr. Gay into appearing to endorse the incorrect characterization of what those phrases mean.
For example, I take the "intifada revolution" to mean resistance of an illegal military occupation, which can refer to a wide variety of actions, including marching and chanting, as the students were doing, and that such actions should be carried out around the globe in solidarity with the aims of the Palestinians of the occupied territories to end that occupation. No doubt some would take the meaning further and advocate for violence, but those options do not define the term intifada as explicitly calling for genocide, which is what Ms. Stefanik is claiming it means.
Ms. Stefanik then proceeded in her method of corralling Dr. Gay, she said, "So, based upon your testimony, you understand that this call for intifada is to commit genocide against the Jewish people in Israel and globally, is that correct?"
That misstates Dr. Gay's testimony, which a review of the above summary makes clear. Dr. Gay then reverted to her boilerplate response about her personal abhorrence at this "hateful" speech.
In her next question, Ms. Stefanik then expanded her claim that the term intifada and phrases that include it call for "the elimination of Israel." That makes her characterization of the term even more inaccurate. This is yet another method used in questioning by prosecutors facing a hostile witness.
She then again mischaracterized Dr. Gay's testimony, claiming that Dr. Gay had testified that this was Dr. Gay's understanding of the word 'intifada."
Similar close analysis of the remainder of Ms. Stefanik's additional 3-minutes of questioning of Dr. Gay reveals similar methods and mischaracterization. Unfortunately, the sound bites and headlines fail to reflect an appreciation for the complexity here.
Frankly, this carelessness led Mr. Hubbell to endorse the narrative that the responses of these three university presidents qualified as anti-semitic endorsement of genocide against the Jewish people.
That is a gross mischaracterization, as the additional 3-hours of testimony, including the opening statements by each of the witnesses, made clear.
With regard to the question about whether Harvard would rescind admission offers or take other disciplinary students against students using the phrase "from the river to the sea" or the word "intifada advocating for the murder of Jews", here again, Rep. Stefanik further expands her assertion to name a different phrase, which is a sandbagging rhetorical device, for which this witness was not prepared.
Mr. Hubbell claims that "As the question was starkly framed by Rep. Stefanik, that answer was self-evident." I disagree, and the above explication of the question-and-answer by Ms. Stefanik demonstrates why I hold this view.
It is important to note that Ms. Stefanik's support of Israel is unqualified. In March of this year, when President Biden expressed concern about the state of democracy in Israel, in light of the effort to overhaul the judicial system to make it subordinate to the legislative branch, which Netanyahu directed as P.M. (efforts that brought about the most long-standing and massive protests Israel has ever seen), Ms. Stefanik said the next day 3/30/2023 that President Biden's remarks were "hostile" and "shameful." In fact, President Biden's concern on this issue is in line with the majority of the residents of Israel.
In the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict, it is crucial that words and phrases, and questions and the answers to them, be very carefully analyzed to avoid miscommunication that can then be exploited for political purposes.