Degreed Idiot Embarrasses Species.

"Of course Hitler is evil, but he has tenure. So sadly, we can do nothing but respectfully disagree with him.”

-- quote from Chancellor Winston Churchill…from my non-existent novel, "The Man in the High Ivory Tower" (title poached from Phillip K. Dick) about an alternate reality where university presidents govern the free world.

This story answers the age old question: “Can a kooky Northwestern University professor find true polyamorous happiness in the clammy arms of Iranian fundy lunatics?”

Sure, as long as they have rabid antisemitism to keep their love strong and their cloven hooves warm at night.

In fact, they have their own song (sung to the tune these song from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” -- "Love Is All Around" -- written and sung by Sonny Curtis)

1…2…3…

Who can turn Tehran on with his bile?
Who can take a wretched lie, and try to make seem much less vile?

Well it's you bitch, and we all know it
NU's Nazi flake, and every time you speak up you show it.

Your lies fly all around, but sinecure saves you.
’Cause Hitler’s favorite clown has tenure at NU.

Where do you get the fucking gall?
Where do you get the fucking gall?

Here’s the appalling story.

NU professor backs denial of Holocaust by Iran chief
Jewish leaders fear support could add credibility to view

By Jodi S. Cohen
Tribune higher education reporter

February 4, 2006

A Northwestern University professor known for denying the Holocaust happened has publicly sided with Iran's hard-line president, who has been on a campaign against Israel.

Engineering professor Arthur Butz said Friday that he agrees with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's remarks calling the Holocaust a "myth." Butz said his comments supporting the president recently were published by the English-language Tehran Times and Iran's semi-official Mehr news agency.

Butz, a tenured professor whose views have been known in the United States for years, is being promoted by Iranian news sources as one of the world scholars who support Ahmadinejad's views on the Holocaust.

"I congratulate him on becoming the first head of state to speak out clearly on these issues and regret only that it was not a Western head of state," Butz said in a Mehr news report. He posted the same comments on his Northwestern-provided Web site.

…
"I continue to maintain those three theses, which have become core features of what is called `Holocaust revisionism.' Apart from some nuances of wording, the three theses were repeated by President Ahmadinejad. Therefore, there can be no question that I endorse his remarks in those respects," Butz wrote.

Since 1996, Butz has posted his views about the Holocaust on his Northwestern-affiliated Web site, including information from his 1976 book "The Hoax of the 20th Century: The Case Against the Presumed Extermination of European Jewry."

Northwestern University spokesman Al Cubbage emphasized that the university does not agree with Butz.

"As certainly has been made clear on many occasions, Northwestern University as an institution obviously does not endorse or agree with the personal opinions of professor Butz," Cubbage said. "At the same time, however, the university does believe that its faculty members are entitled to express their own personal opinions."

It doesn’t surprise me that some affectless, ethical abend of an engineer would seize on Holocaust denial as a freak cause/obsession/road-to-contrarian-infamy. It seems to be a disease of a certain subspecies of that breed. They live with a vital chunk missing from their Edward Teller souls. A hole blown out where their humanity should be, and the cavity topped off with that particular and polluted pitchblend that magnetizes them in some horrible way, luring them inexorably towards the ferrous pleasures of fascism.

No, what revolted me was the response from Northwestern. To repeat:

"As certainly has been made clear on many occasions, Northwestern University as an institution obviously does not endorse or agree with the personal opinions of professor Butz," Cubbage said. "At the same time, however, the university does believe that its faculty members are entitled to express their own personal opinions."

The existence and extent of the Holocaust is not a matter of opinion, personal or otherwise.

And some wannabe goose-stepper – tenured or not – doesn’t get to hide behind “opinion” any more that you or I get to assert that the freezing point of water or the distance from the Sun to the Earth are matters subject to our private belief systems.

If this feep wants to go Full Metal Goebbels and opine that the Nazis were heroes, and mass murder was a noble act, fine. As vomitous as it is, that would qualify as a “personal opinion”.

But existence of the Holocaust is non-negotiable.

Which is why the tepid, boneless response from NU makes me sick. These are the kind of people I know, and this summarizes to a tee exactly what has gone wrong in the “tolerance gone wild" culture of the academy. A mealy-mouthed response to Butz’s comments from NU was not only sadly predictable and reflexive, but also entirely unnecessary and self-defeating.

What they needed to say was something like...

“The reality of Holocaust -- both as moral catastrophe and historical fact -- is beyond debate and Mr. Butz’s insane comments are an insult to intelligent humans everywhere. Mr. Butz’s free speech rights are, of course, respected, and since he somehow managed to snag a tenured position here, it is true that we can’t fire him unless he fondles a coed.

However it is also true that we wouldn't exactly be disappointed if Mr. Butz’s hair caught fire…and he chose to try to douse the flames with a shotgun.

Or a coed.”

Straightforward and unambiguous.

And yet with 100 PhDs-per-square-yard, somehow Northwestern can’t form their collective mouths to denounce this ass and, more importantly, the basis of his despicable assertion in language that is simple, clear and muscular.