 Denver, Colorado, Tuesday, November 18,
2003  David
Irving comments: THE article reproduced
here is evidence of the corrosive effects
of positive discrimination.
Even making allowances
for this journalist's strictly limited
vocabulary, her writing is bereft of ideas
and barren of creative thinking. I expect
the Denver Post's editor privately agrees,
but he is aware of the drawbacks of
rewarding for merit without fear or favor,
and of ruthlessly penalizing for
inadequacy. Some restrictions apply, as
they say.
As many Denver readers will know, I was
able to address them in comparative
tranquility at a location in South Aurora,
a southern suburb, after we had
successfully packed off Newsum and her
unappetizing friends -- I hope that will
not be taken as an indication that we
would have entertained any cannibalistic
designs on them -- to a location many
miles away. YES, it is true that I once lost
a
libel action brought against me by a
Royal Navy captain. Counsel's advice was
that we had a strong defense, as we had
relied solely on Admiralty documents. But
the verdict is in the hands of a jury.
That was thirty-four
years ago. Since then nobody has
successfully sued me for libel: which is
more than many newspapers can say.
Which reminds me, wasn't it in Denver
that Newsum's spiritual fatherland, the
Anti-Defamation League, was recently
ordered to pay record damages for libel to
a couple whose telephones they had tapped,
and whom they accused of
anti-Semitism. 
Charges
of bigotry backfire, ADL loses Denver
appeal against $10.5m libel award |
$10m
Libel award against Anti-Defamation League
upheld
|
Nazi swill,
coming soon
By Dani
Newsum
 DAVID
Irving is vile. I felt filthy reading and writing
about his swill. His is a wasted life. According to
his website, David
Irving, a
Nazi-defending, Holocaust-denying 'historian' is
slithering into Denver (or Aurora -- both cities
are mentioned on his tour schedule) on Saturday,
December 20.
If you don't know the name, Irving is a British
author of several books on World War II, most
notably 'Hitler's
War,' written from Hitler's point of view. Irving considers himself a historian (he doesn't
have a college degree), and he does have a
following. In 2000 he made international
news by suing Emory University (Atlanta)
professor Deborah
Lipstadt and her publisher Penguin Books
for allegedly libeling him in Lipstadt's book,
'Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on
Truth and Memory.' In the book, Lipstadt calls
Irving 'one of the most dangerous spokespersons for
Holocaust denial,' and accused him of twisting
evidence 'until it conforms with his ideological
leanings and political propaganda.' Irving filed his libel suit in England because
British law actually puts the burden of proof on
the person being sued -- Lipstadt -- instead of on
the person alleging the libel. In order to
vindicate Lipstadt and Penguin, their attorney --
Richard Rampton -- introduced evidence about
the Holocaust and put the spotlight on Irving's
demented and well-documented trail of Holocaust
denial. Britain's Guardian
Unlimited provided extensive coverage of the
trial. Irving is a man obsessed with Hitler
and with denying
Hitler and his Third Reich's extermination of
millions of Jews and other targets of Nazi
genocide. 'The biggest lie of the lot, the blood
libel on the German people, is the lie that the
Germans had factories of death in which they
liquidated millions of their opponents,' he
says. According to Irving's trial
testimony, the Nazis killed 'between one and 4
million Jews' during World War II, but not in gas
chambers and not as part of a systematic Final
Solution. 'The defendants
(Lipstadt and Penguin) will find it very hard to
prove it was a Third Reich decision and an Adolf
Hitler decision. There were multiple shootings,
but it was not pursuant to any
programme.' During the trial, Irving consistently denied the
existence and use of gas chambers at Auschwitz.
In an exchange with Lipstadt attorney Richard
Rampton, Irving
spewed: 'I say quite tastelessly, in fact, that more
women died on the back seat of Edward
Kennedy's car at Chappaquiddick than ever died
in a gas chamber in Auschwitz -- Oh you think
that's tasteless? How about this: there are so many
Auschwitz survivors going around, in fact the
number increases as the years go past, which is
biologically very odd to say the least. I'm going
to form an association of Auschwitz Survivors,
Survivors of the Holocaust and Other Liars, or the
ASSHOLS.' In a review of a book about the Irving
libel trial, Salon.com repeated Irving's
obscene acronym for Holocaust survivors. An earlier Salon.com article
on the trial quotes Irving musing, "If I was a Jew, I would be far more
concerned, not by the question of who pulled the
trigger, but why; and I do not think that has
ever been properly investigated," Irving once
said. "There must be some reason why
anti-Semitism keeps on breaking out like some
kind of epidemic." The trial judge ruled
in favor of Professor Lipstadt and Penguin,
finding that David Irving was 'an active Holocaust
denier; that he was anti-Semitic and racist and
that he associated with right-wing extremists who
promoted neo-Nazism.' The judgment left Irving bankrupt,
and an international pariah. Irving's website
claims that Australia,
Canada
and Germany
have banned him from stepping on their shores.
The Guardian reported that Italy and Austria
have also refused to allow Irving entry. But according to his website he's already in the
land of the free and begins his 2003 U.S.A. tour in
Cleveland
this Wednesday, November 19,
[2003] and
arrives in Denver (or Aurora) on Saturday, December
20, the first full day of Hanukkah. I have a few questions. - Since David Irving is bankrupt, who's
sponsoring this tour? He has supporters
abroad and in the U.S. -- this isn't the
first time that Irving has fouled U.S.
soil. Where is his Colorado event and who's
providing the venue and lunch?
- And WHERE IS crazy
Tom 'on the border' Tancredo when he's actually
needed?
Note: Irving's lost in court before -- 30
years ago, he was found guilty of libeling a
British captain. And yet some real historians and
others still have kind
words for Irving. I found more to read Irving
and Holocaust denial at www.nizkor.org
and www.holocaust-history.org. Dani Newsum, a former civil rights
attorney in the Colorado Attorney General's
office, appears weekly on KBDI Channel 12's
"Colorado Inside Out" (8 p.m. Fridays). Denver
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