Now, Heeb Magazine (and our hats off to them) has performed some old fashioned new school journalism and discovered the cherry on the top of this story.

…it gets better, because once this story was posted on various websites, of course, people began to comment, including one “Steven Goldberg,” who stepped up to defend Santomauro (or “Santamauro” as “Mr. Goldberg” spells it.) If you read the local CBS website, all you see is Goldberg’s post. But what “Mr. Goldberg” didn’t realize is that when he posted on the Fox site through his twitter account, it didn’t just show his post, but the account from which it was posted–which belongs to [drumroll, please] Michael Santomauro.

Michael Santomauro: I salute you. Let us hope all Holocaust deniers can rise to your level.

Now, a not so quick admission. In early December, Mr. Santamauro commented repeatedly on Marc Tracy’s fantastic review of Ruth Franklin’s book of criticism A Thousand Darknesses (If you haven’t read it, go now. It is on my list of the top ten best Tablet articles). Santamauro was peddling his shpiel, but was also thoroughly debunked by Tablet’s readers in an excellent exercise of truth winning out.

Today, the editorial staff removed those comments as violating the magazine’s lenient standards policy. Personally, I am uneasy with this decision—and I should say that I’ve been encouraged to voice that dissent. I disagreed, both because I thought our readers rallied to the occasion without any interference, and because, while I occasionally disagree with Tablet commentary and articles, I never feel like I’ve lost anything from reading them, and often the magazine gains something by allowing them.

In that vein, what do you think? We’ll see if I can take it.

E-Mail About Holocaust Book Questioning The Holocaust Shakes A School [NYT]
Users of Roommate Service Receive Anti-Jewish E-mails [NYT]
Holocaust Denier, Michael Santomauro, Puts The “Twit” in Twitter [Heeb]

Reached for comment, Irving confirmed that the talk was planned for the Kolping Society. “We have a valid contract, and we’re going to go ahead with that,” he said. “We’ll be there at 7 p.m.” When a similar situation occurred in Toronto, he said, “I turned up, and my entire audience turned up, and that was the end of that. I’m sure that the Kolping Society will see reason.” He said that the Society’s claim of canceling the event was a “smokescreen” and that he will still speak there—as, he added, he’d previously done, in 2004. A Society spokeswoman denied both those claims. “He has no contract at all,” she said. “There’s absolutely no contract. He cannot come in the building.”

UPDATE: New Jersey Residents Against David Irving, a counterpart to the New York anti-Irving group, has announced that an American Legion post in the town of Wayne has canceled a lecture Irving had been scheduled to give there tonight.

Earlier: David Irving to Speak in New York, Secretly