The Don Rickles Of Mid East Debate

Submitted by Ben Creech (United States), Oct 1, 2002 at 00:03

My greatest challenge while reading the Donahue interview was staying in my chair and maintaining enough composure to finally finish it. With each verbal punch thrown by Dr Dabashi I visualized super comic Don Rickles. Rickles became famous for his abililty to insult distinguished guests with accusations so outlandish they became too overcome by laughter to take offense. I almost had to pick myself off the floor to type this note.

The sad part about Dr. Dabashi's hilarious performance is that it is all too typical that people of his persuasion tend to resort to insult and invective as opposed to reasoned discourse when confronted by the likes of Pipes. Dr. Dabashi may, in one sense, have a point. Dr. Pipes writes with such clarity that it is indeed seldom necessary to read "one sentence twice".

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".