Graphomania is a need for attention (and a full employment plan)

by Philip Weiss on December 22, 2008 · 9 comments

This list of Harvard Law faculty's books includes three by Alan Dershowitz. Three in a year. I love a cigar but sometimes I take it out of my mouth, Groucho said (he was talking to a guy on the $64,000 Question who had like 17 children).

Adam Horowitz fills in: You have plenty of time for smoking cigars while other people write your books for you (at just over minimum wage) (From the magazine 02138, cached here). Money quote:

Dershowitz is, however, notorious on the law school campus for his use of researchers. (The law school itself is particularly known for this practice, probably because lawyers are used to having paralegals and clerks who do significant research and writing; students familiar with several law school professors' writing processes say that Dershowitz reflects the norm in principle, if to a greater degree in practice.)

Dershowitz generally employs one or two full-time researchers, three or four part-timers, and a handful of students who do occasional work—all paid at $11.50 per hour. (Since Dershowitz doesn't get enough in the $7,500/year research budget the law school accords him, he often has to pay that hourly rate out of his own pocket.) Several students who have worked with him describe his hiring practices as almost arbitrary—barely looking at résumés, hiring anyone who asks him for a job, sometimes having his wife interview applicants, and often forgetting those who've worked with him in the past. One long-serving researcher was a local high-school student.

Several of his researchers say that Dershowitz doesn't subscribe to the scholarly convention of researching first, then drawing conclusions. Instead, as a lawyer might, he writes his conclusions, leaving spaces where he'd like sources or case law to back up a thesis. On several occasions where the research has suggested opposite conclusions, his students say, he has asked them to go back and look for other cases, or simply to omit the discrepant information. "That's the way it's done; a piecemeal, ass-backwards way," says one student who has firsthand experience with the writing habits of Dershowitz and other tenured colleagues. "They write first, make assertions, and farm out [the work] to research assistants to vet it. They do very little of the research themselves."

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{ 9 comments }

1 Steve R December 22, 2008 at 12:12 pm

"I love a cigar but sometimes I take it out of my mouth, Groucho said (he was talking to a guy on the $64,000 Question who had like 17 children."

No wonder Phil buys the Muslim version of history–details are irrelevant to him.
The show was You Bet Your Life, and the contestant was a woman. Obviously. Otherwise what sense would the "in the mouth make?" Unless phil is trying to tell us something about his sex life (like we couldn't have guessed that!)

2 LanceThruster December 22, 2008 at 12:31 pm

Details are quite important to Phil and seems to take corrections with appreciation as he updates his understanding of things. I do not see the same characteristic in Zionists when confronted with unpleasant truths. They seem to stick to the official narrative regardless of facts.
~

3 anon December 22, 2008 at 2:03 pm

I agree with LanceThruster.

Dersh writes (or rather his low paid help, and in the way Phil describes, which is not the way to be objective, but rather reflects an American adversarial trial approach–minus the other side's advocate's work) the way Groucho's joke target fucks, producing many books, many babies. I'd say produces living abortions, along the line of e.g., From Time Immemorial.

That's my take. Not difficult to follow. Thus, Steve R is the real giant POT calling the not there kettle black.

Typical Zionist.

4 Steve R December 22, 2008 at 2:09 pm

Sure guys, whatever, just make shit up and call it "history."
And if there were 25,000 Palestinians living in Samaria, say there were 2 million. Phil won't notice, and lancethruster won't care.

5 Steve Sailer December 22, 2008 at 4:23 pm

When I pointed this out, I got a letter from the high school student Dershowitz employs to help write his books. He was a quite bright high school student.

6 Joachim Martillo December 22, 2008 at 4:26 pm

Dersh even employed Natalie Portman as a peon researcher.

7 LanceThruster December 22, 2008 at 4:34 pm

Steve R – You seem to subscribe to the "180 rule" theory. You accuse others of what your side is doing. How about providing the official narrative you follow as to how the Palestinians were "justly" deprived of their lands.

See Looting, Looting, and More Looting for details from the archives.
~

8 LD December 23, 2008 at 12:45 am

what exactly is the muslim version of history? id assume there's a jewish version then? Zionists are so adorable.

9 shiva December 23, 2008 at 3:32 am

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