Recommended Reading

The New Yorker has a very, very long article by Connie Bruck about Alan Dershowitz, mainly about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein is the latest in a long line of clients via whom Professor Dershowitz has systematically sullied his own, once-proud reputation. There isn't much there left to sully but he's doing what he can to eliminate the last vestiges.

I blame a certain amount of my personal cynicism on the list of public figures I once respected and later felt I'd either misjudged or seen them throw away what was once valid respect. Dershowitz is on the list somewhere between John McCain and Bill Cosby. There's a quote in the article that gets to one reason why. A judge who presided over a case involving Dershowitz said, "He has squandered his position as a Harvard law professor and a civil libertarian — for the sole purpose of being on TV."