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Tuesday, December 20, 2005
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Update: Ferrara’s Fine Italian Hand [For background, scroll down to "Hubba Hubba."] My man has issued a statement in his own defense. Neither UD nor Reuters can make sense of it. Here’s Reuters’ take: In a prepared statement, Ferrara said he had not accepted payments from Abramoff or other lobbyists for his op-ed articles for several years and he relied only on think tanks and other policy outfits where he works for financial support. The clarification would involve Ferrara’s parsing “supporting my work,” and “contributing to my work” in his statement. Does he mean supporting in the way a doting mother might be supportive? Does he mean contributing in the sense of editorial suggestions from likeminded thinkers? Or does he mean - which seems likelier - that he, Peter Ferrara, has held certain political positions for many years, and that if you, agreeing with his positions, choose to respond to one of his columns by writing him a check for a few thousand dollars, that’s fine by him. Happy the opinion writer whose work generates large checks from random impressed citizens! But are they just citizens, or are they lobbyists? Ferrara does not take up the distinction in his statement. Yet it seems extremely important to UD. Right now she’s imagining herself holding a check for ten thousand dollars in her hand. It’s made out to her. It has arrived in the mail from someone who writes: “I love your take on the undergraduate literature curriculum! Here!” Is it from her Aunt Tillie, or the publisher of the Norton Anthology? |