Liberals like John Kerry and Supreme Court Justices Anthony Kennedy and Ruth Ginsberg frequently point to Europe as the model the United States should emulate in our laws and cultural attitudes. It is unclear, though, how long this Euro-infatuation will continue in light of this sort of thing:
Right-wing British historian David Irving pleaded guilty yesterday to denying the Holocaust and was sentenced to three years in prison, even after conceding that he wrongly said there were no Nazi gas chambers at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Irving, handcuffed and wearing a blue suit, arrived in court carrying a copy of one of his most controversial books -- "Hitler's War," which challenges the extent of the Holocaust. "I made a mistake when I said there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz," Irving told the court before his sentencing. He faced up to 10 years in prison. He also expressed sorrow "for all the innocent people who died during the second world war."
But he insisted that he never wrote a book about the Holocaust, which he called "just a fragment of my area of interest."
"In no way did I deny the killings of millions of people by the Nazis," testified Irving, who has written nearly 30 books. Irving's lawyer immediately announced that he would appeal the sentence. "I consider the verdict a little too stringent. I would say it's a bit of a message trial," Elmar Kresbach said.
Irving, 67, has been in custody since his November arrest on charges stemming from two speeches that he gave in Austria in 1989 in which he was accused of denying the Nazis' extermination of 6 million Jews. He has contended that most of those who died at concentration camps such as Auschwitz succumbed to diseases such as typhus rather than execution.
The court convicted Irving after his guilty plea under the 1992 law, which applies to "whoever denies, grossly plays down, approves or tries to excuse the National Socialist genocide or other National Socialist crimes against humanity in a print publication, in broadcast or other media."
Irving's trial came amid new debate over freedom of expression in Europe, where the printing of unflattering caricatures of the prophet Muhammad has triggered deadly protests worldwide.
Now, we have no sympathy for holocaust deniers, but we do have a lot of sympathy for a free press and the free exchange of political ideas. Apparently, European courts do not. We will wait patiently for those liberal champions of the bold maxim which proclaims a willingness to fight to the death for another man's right to say that which is despicable, to come out foursquare in defense of Mr. Irving. They'll arrive on scene, we are sure, to carry the free speech fight to its enemies just as soon as they can emerge from hiding from the Mohammedans whose death threats have made the prospect of actually having to expend one's life in the battle for journalistic freedom seem uncomfortably likely.