The writer and professor Fouad Ajami gets a remarkably hostile obituary in today's New York Times. "Edward Said, the Palestinian cultural critic who died in 2003, accused him of having 'unmistakably racist prescriptions,'" the Times writes.
Three paragraphs of the review are devoted to quotes from the hard-left Nation. One, talking about a book by Ajami, says:
The scholar Andrew N. Rubin, writing in The Nation, said it "echoes the kind of anti-Arabism that both Washington and the pro-Israeli lobby have come to embrace."
The final passages of the obituary are also from the Nation:
In a profile in The Nation in 2003, Adam Shatz described Mr. Ajami's distinctive appearance, characterized by a "dramatic beard, stylish clothes and a charming, almost flirtatious manner."
He continued: "On television, he radiates above-the-frayness, speaking with the wry, jaded authority that men in power admire, especially in men who have risen from humble roots. Unlike the other Arabs, he appears to have no ax to grind. He is one of us; he is the good Arab."
If I wanted to read the Nation's obituary of Fouad Ajami, I would read the Nation. From the Times I want something more straight-up the middle, less biased toward the left. The idea that Ajami was "racist" or "anti-Arab" is so far from the truth that it doesn't deserve to be taken as seriously as the Times obit apparently takes it. It leaves readers with the egregiously false impression that Ajami was some sort of Klansman or Bull Connor type.