Dartblog

I read today on DrudgeReport that New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, speaking at Brown University, had a pie thrown at him and I pitied the poor conservatives who must have done this, those who clearly did not understand the value of free speech. It was much to my surprise when I read that attempted pieing was perpetrated by two so-called “environmental activists,” for whom Friedman was too far to the right.

Conservatives such as Pat Buchanon, Ann Coulter, Milton Friedman, David Horowitz, William Kristol, and others have all been thrown at by students on the left in the past. (After Ann Coulter was thrown at and missed by two students with evidently poor aim she commented that it is fortunate that liberals are so weak and bad at sports.) I would never expect something like to happen with Dartmouth students, but it is too bad that some of our intercollegiate peers seem to think that throwing a pie is somehow a substitute for reasoned debate on ideas.

In any event, it is a shame that Mr. Friedman, a fine columnists and I think a tremendously bright intellectual, had to face such a juvenile reception… although to be fair, it is Brown after all.