Most people have only seen the money-shot soundbites – mere minutes from the nearly six hours of congressional grilling. Before those, all three university presidents, in varying ways, stated that they generally found calls for genocide abhorrent, that terms like intifada were reprehensible, and that they had to weigh their personal viewpoints with the policies they were paid to uphold. But like three shipwrecked survivors on a rubber dinghy surrounded by hungry, snapping sharks, their responses were stilted, carefully worded, rehearsed, devoid of emotion, and legalistic when the occasion called for shrill, self-righteous certainty to suit the black or white demands of the mob.
December 13, 2023