By Jeffrey Blehar
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Just a quick Corner note here, because it’s been
impossible not to laugh at the affected outrage currently being mustered online
by the media and adjacent Left on behalf of one Hamza El Boudali. Who is poor
Hamza? He’s a Stanford University graduate student who, in a piece by Theo
Baker in the Atlantic, was quoted arguing for the assassination of President Joe
Biden over “the genocide of Palestinians,” preferably via foreign military
drone. (He claims his cause is “peace,” and you have to respect the moxie, at
least.)
Baker — who is a student journalist and sophomore at
Stanford — wrote a piece about much more than this one anecdote; he covers the
larger “war at Stanford” that broke out after 10/7 but had been festering
underneath the surface for years. The article also doubles as a well-written
critique of the shockingly open ignorance on display from elite striver
students more worried about being on the right side of a socially influential
mob than anything else. (Things are dire there, folks.)
But, of course, the Leftist reactions to the piece took a
predictably diversionary approach rather than address its substantive reporting
or arguments, so instead we were asked: Why was this whelp (to
say nothing of the Atlantic) thrusting this poor innocent graduate
student into the spotlight? Wrote one: “Why did the Atlantic just
target a 23-year-old student and non-public figure by full name in a way that
seems intended to endanger them?”
Forgive me for stating the obvious, but it’s because
he openly called for the assassination of the president of the United States.
I’d name that guy, too! That’s newsworthy — and not just to the Secret Service.
It’s particularly relevant when you’re writing a piece about the insanity and
rhetorical extremism of Stanford’s activist class. Which brings me to another
point: It seems that many who are criticizing Baker’s piece didn’t bother to
read to the end of it, because if they had they would understand that Boudali
is not some random computer-science graduate student: He is one of Stanford’s
loudest and most openly provocative anti-Israeli protesters, and he reappears
later in Baker’s piece in the role of outright provocateur and antagonist. He’s
the opposite of a private figure, and all those who defend him
as if he is a child with no agency are revealing their belief that certain
people and perspectives deserve a patronizing sort of shielding from
consequences. Even if I accepted such arrant moral nonsense, I would never
benefit from it myself; such dispensations are afforded only to those of proper
status and class. (Ironically, El Boudali is actually an extremely religiously
conservative Muslim and proudly anti-LGBT. But he nevertheless “codes” properly
into the victim class for obvious and mindless enough reasons.)
Finally, it’s impossible not to note how perturbed people
seem to be that the mighty Atlantic, that edifice of respectable
left media consensus, dared give voice to a perspective
critical of what’s happening at Stanford in the wake of 10/7. Many on the left
are vaguely aware that this sort of grievously embarrassing and indefensible
nonsense exists; what matters is keeping it out of the mainstream media.
Keep it to places that their social class can safely ignore. (Baker wrote a
fine piece for the Atlantic, but it was no scoop. That belongs to
Aaron Sibarium of the Washington Free Beacon, who wrote about all
of this — including El Boudali’s various exploits — in a lengthy and thoroughly
documented report nearly a month and a half ago.)
The real moral of the El Boudali affair is this: It’s a
really terrible idea to announce in a public forum that you want the president
to be assassinated. Beyond that, it also should be emphasized that if you
decide to go ahead and do that, no amount of political, ethnic, or
institutional armor will prevent you from becoming famous, nor should it.
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