John Whitehead's Commentary
Nat Hentoff: An American Classic
Ignoring the screams of the horrifically tortured doesn't keep our hands from being stained with their blood.
--Nat Hentoff on the torture of prisoners worldwide
With eight decades to his credit and counting, journalist Nat Hentoff has had a long history of taking on controversial causes.
He has defended a woman rejected from law school because she is Caucasian; called into a talk show hosted by Oliver North to agree with him on liberal intolerance for free speech; was a friend to the late Malcolm X; and wrote the liner notes for Bob Dylan's second album.
So it should have come as no surprise when Hentoff became involved in the Terri Schiavo case, bringing to light the facts that most journalists chose to ignore. In his Village Voice article calling the case judicial murder, judicial barbarism and the longest public execution in history, Hentoff sided with the many neurologists and radiologists who felt Schiavo was not in a "persistent vegetative state." He has even criticized the media for their poor investigative reporting on the issue.
Hentoff, a lifelong leftist, has angered nearly every political faction around--including his own Village Voice editors. A self-proclaimed "Jewish atheist, civil libertarian, left-wing pro-lifer," Hentoff is one of a few who has stuck to his principles through his many years of work, regardless of the controversy he may have provoked. Simply put, Hentoff says what he thinks and does so clearly.
Born in Boston on June 10, 1925, Hentoff received a B.A. with honors from Northeastern University and did graduate work at Harvard. From 1953 to 1957, he was associate editor of Down Beat magazine. He has written many books on jazz, biographies and novels, including children's books, and he currently writes a weekly column for the Village Voice and for the United Media Syndicate, which reaches around 250 papers in the country. He writes on jazz and country music for the Wall Street Journal. Publications in which his work have appeared include the New York Times, Commonwealth, the New Republic, the Atlantic and the New Yorker, where he was a staff writer for more than 25 years. In 1980, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Education and an American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award for his coverage of the law and criminal justice in his columns. In 1985, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Laws by Northeastern University.
Although Hentoff has always considered himself to be a liberal, his pro-life position is hardly tolerated by fellow left-wingers. Arguing that a human not yet born still counts as one of our species, with all the genetic information that makes each human being unique, Hentoff is almost alone when he makes the case as a liberal that human life in the womb should not be exterminated. When he first declared himself a pro-lifer, women in his Village Voice office stopped speaking to him. And although Hentoff had been invited to speak at Nazareth College in Rochester (a secular institution), he was uninvited two weeks before the lecture. Members on the lecture committee at Nazareth apparently felt that his stance on abortion was outside the limit of what students could safely hear.
American Civil Liberties Union affiliates around the country had for years invited Hentoff to speak at fundraising dinners, but after declaring himself a pro-lifer--and even though he agrees with most other ACLU policies--all such invitations stopped. Hentoff later resigned from the ACLU in protest of their position on assisted suicide, as well as their position against revealing the results of HIV tests on newborn babies. He has since re-joined the ACLU, citing his appreciation for their efforts to alert the country to the dangers posed by the Bush administration's post-9/11 policies.
Hentoff has even criticized the Democratic Party for its past practice of speaking about tolerance yet tolerating no dissent within its ranks on the abortion issue. Nevertheless, men and women from all over the country identify with Hentoff, writing that they thought themselves to be the solitary liberal pro-lifers in their office, at school and at home and were surprised to find Hentoff in the same position. Even some feminists are on his side--the Feminists for Life of America, for example. But with or without supporters, Hentoff's opinions remain principled and without hypocrisy.
During Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign for the presidency, Hentoff set himself against the former President, saying that Clinton "has done more harm to the Constitution than any president in American history." Hentoff defied liberals who defended Clinton, whom he considered "a serial violator of our liberties" during his presidency.
When I came under attack by the Clinton White House and was labeled part of the "vast right wing conspiracy" for being an attorney in the Paula Jones case, Hentoff came to my defense. Writing in the Washington Post, Hentoff called me a "conspirator for the Constitution," citing my work on behalf of the Bill of Rights, and said the President could benefit from reading my weekly commentaries.
Recently, in response to Clint Eastwood's Academy Award-winning movie Million Dollar Baby, Hentoff criticized Eastwood for "cluelessly encouraging the euthanization of some of the disabled." A fierce proponent of disability rights, Hentoff has opposed assisted suicide and previously bashed the ACLU for supporting its legalization, saying it "ignores its effects on the severely disabled for whom that fatal decision would be made." Although an acquaintance of Eastwood, Hentoff did not hesitate to criticize the message of Eastwood's film, which Hentoff feels is "that the kindest response to someone struggling with the life changes brought on by a severe injury is, after all, to kill them."
Hentoff's views on the rights of Americans to write, think and speak freely are expressed in his columns, and he has come to be acknowledged as an authority on First Amendment defense, the Bill of Rights, the Supreme Court, student rights and education. Friends and critics alike describe him as the kind of writer, and citizen, that all should aspire to be--"less interested in 'exclusives' than in 'making a difference.'" Critiquing Hentoff's autobiography, Speaking Freely, Nicholas von Hoffman refers to him as "a trusting man, a gentle man, just and undeviatingly consistent." Perhaps Hentoff describes himself best:
My lives as a radical (according to the FBI); an "enslaver of women" (according to pro-choicers); a suspiciously unpredictable civil-libertarian (according to the ACLU); a dangerous defender of alleged pornography (according to my friend Catherine MacKinnon); an irrelevant, anachronistic integrationist (according to assorted black nationalists); and, as an editor at the Washington Post once said, not unkindly--"a general pain in the ..."
But make no mistake about it, Hentoff's reputation as one of our nation's most respected, controversial and uncompromising writers is undeniable.
Nat Hentoff is a true American classic.
--Nat Hentoff on the torture of prisoners worldwide
With eight decades to his credit and counting, journalist Nat Hentoff has had a long history of taking on controversial causes.
He has defended a woman rejected from law school because she is Caucasian; called into a talk show hosted by Oliver North to agree with him on liberal intolerance for free speech; was a friend to the late Malcolm X; and wrote the liner notes for Bob Dylan's second album.
So it should have come as no surprise when Hentoff became involved in the Terri Schiavo case, bringing to light the facts that most journalists chose to ignore. In his Village Voice article calling the case judicial murder, judicial barbarism and the longest public execution in history, Hentoff sided with the many neurologists and radiologists who felt Schiavo was not in a "persistent vegetative state." He has even criticized the media for their poor investigative reporting on the issue.
Hentoff, a lifelong leftist, has angered nearly every political faction around--including his own Village Voice editors. A self-proclaimed "Jewish atheist, civil libertarian, left-wing pro-lifer," Hentoff is one of a few who has stuck to his principles through his many years of work, regardless of the controversy he may have provoked. Simply put, Hentoff says what he thinks and does so clearly.
Born in Boston on June 10, 1925, Hentoff received a B.A. with honors from Northeastern University and did graduate work at Harvard. From 1953 to 1957, he was associate editor of Down Beat magazine. He has written many books on jazz, biographies and novels, including children's books, and he currently writes a weekly column for the Village Voice and for the United Media Syndicate, which reaches around 250 papers in the country. He writes on jazz and country music for the Wall Street Journal. Publications in which his work have appeared include the New York Times, Commonwealth, the New Republic, the Atlantic and the New Yorker, where he was a staff writer for more than 25 years. In 1980, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Education and an American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award for his coverage of the law and criminal justice in his columns. In 1985, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Laws by Northeastern University.
Although Hentoff has always considered himself to be a liberal, his pro-life position is hardly tolerated by fellow left-wingers. Arguing that a human not yet born still counts as one of our species, with all the genetic information that makes each human being unique, Hentoff is almost alone when he makes the case as a liberal that human life in the womb should not be exterminated. When he first declared himself a pro-lifer, women in his Village Voice office stopped speaking to him. And although Hentoff had been invited to speak at Nazareth College in Rochester (a secular institution), he was uninvited two weeks before the lecture. Members on the lecture committee at Nazareth apparently felt that his stance on abortion was outside the limit of what students could safely hear.
American Civil Liberties Union affiliates around the country had for years invited Hentoff to speak at fundraising dinners, but after declaring himself a pro-lifer--and even though he agrees with most other ACLU policies--all such invitations stopped. Hentoff later resigned from the ACLU in protest of their position on assisted suicide, as well as their position against revealing the results of HIV tests on newborn babies. He has since re-joined the ACLU, citing his appreciation for their efforts to alert the country to the dangers posed by the Bush administration's post-9/11 policies.
Hentoff has even criticized the Democratic Party for its past practice of speaking about tolerance yet tolerating no dissent within its ranks on the abortion issue. Nevertheless, men and women from all over the country identify with Hentoff, writing that they thought themselves to be the solitary liberal pro-lifers in their office, at school and at home and were surprised to find Hentoff in the same position. Even some feminists are on his side--the Feminists for Life of America, for example. But with or without supporters, Hentoff's opinions remain principled and without hypocrisy.
During Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign for the presidency, Hentoff set himself against the former President, saying that Clinton "has done more harm to the Constitution than any president in American history." Hentoff defied liberals who defended Clinton, whom he considered "a serial violator of our liberties" during his presidency.
When I came under attack by the Clinton White House and was labeled part of the "vast right wing conspiracy" for being an attorney in the Paula Jones case, Hentoff came to my defense. Writing in the Washington Post, Hentoff called me a "conspirator for the Constitution," citing my work on behalf of the Bill of Rights, and said the President could benefit from reading my weekly commentaries.
Recently, in response to Clint Eastwood's Academy Award-winning movie Million Dollar Baby, Hentoff criticized Eastwood for "cluelessly encouraging the euthanization of some of the disabled." A fierce proponent of disability rights, Hentoff has opposed assisted suicide and previously bashed the ACLU for supporting its legalization, saying it "ignores its effects on the severely disabled for whom that fatal decision would be made." Although an acquaintance of Eastwood, Hentoff did not hesitate to criticize the message of Eastwood's film, which Hentoff feels is "that the kindest response to someone struggling with the life changes brought on by a severe injury is, after all, to kill them."
Hentoff's views on the rights of Americans to write, think and speak freely are expressed in his columns, and he has come to be acknowledged as an authority on First Amendment defense, the Bill of Rights, the Supreme Court, student rights and education. Friends and critics alike describe him as the kind of writer, and citizen, that all should aspire to be--"less interested in 'exclusives' than in 'making a difference.'" Critiquing Hentoff's autobiography, Speaking Freely, Nicholas von Hoffman refers to him as "a trusting man, a gentle man, just and undeviatingly consistent." Perhaps Hentoff describes himself best:
My lives as a radical (according to the FBI); an "enslaver of women" (according to pro-choicers); a suspiciously unpredictable civil-libertarian (according to the ACLU); a dangerous defender of alleged pornography (according to my friend Catherine MacKinnon); an irrelevant, anachronistic integrationist (according to assorted black nationalists); and, as an editor at the Washington Post once said, not unkindly--"a general pain in the ..."
But make no mistake about it, Hentoff's reputation as one of our nation's most respected, controversial and uncompromising writers is undeniable.
Nat Hentoff is a true American classic.
ABOUT JOHN W. WHITEHEAD
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at staff@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.
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