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AJC Dismisses Snyder’s Anti-Semitism Charge

And Floyd Abrams calls suit ‘ludicrous on its face’

by
Marc Tracy
February 07, 2011
The allegedly offending image.(WCP)
The allegedly offending image.(WCP)

The football season may be over, but the battle for free speech and journalism against bullying petty tyrants who compound their evildoing by inappropriately playing the anti-Semitism card may never be. Washington Post city columnist Courtland Milloy gets the American Jewish Committee’s director of anti-Semitism to note that, out of Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder; the Washington City Paper’s brilliant November takedown of Snyder; and Snyder’s subsequent lawsuit against the paper and claim that its cover illustration was anti-Semitic, the only offensive thing is the team name.

In other Snyder news, New York Times media columnist David Carr—a former WCP editor—reporting that prominent First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams will be working for the defendant. “This litigation is so self-evidently lacking in merit and so ludicrous on its face that it is difficult to imagine that it was commenced for any reason but to seek to intimidate,” Abrams says. An investigation of the complaint itself by TBD—WCP’s main rival—confirmed this.

Here is where I mention that WCP has established a legal defense fund for the case, and that any extra proceeds from it will be donated to D.C. charities. Something to consider throwing money at if you wish to take a stand against a little dictator besmirching the very real legacy of anti-Semitism to satisfy the needs of his damaged ego.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.