Correcting the Record

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In yesterday’s essay entitled “The Invisible Man” I made a statement that Jeff Lipkes — the author of the 12,000-word three-part article at American Thinker that was mentioned in my post — disagrees with. Although nothing I wrote referred to him by name, I am more than happy to help him set the record straight.

Mr. Lipkes sent me the following request this morning via email:

The charges made by the Baron yesterday that my review of American Betrayal was “commissioned” by anonymous “arbiters of the ‘accepted history’” are completely untrue. I myself proposed the review and was not, alas, reimbursed by anyone.

A fuller explanation claims

someone in allegedly conservative circles has decided to spend the money to add more concrete to the containment facility surrounding Diana West. This operation is not like a rant posted on an obscure blog — the editors of these venues are on salary, and the free-lancers who pen the screeds expect to be paid. In other words, somebody who has money wants Diana West to lie back down and stay dead.

Again, these charges are untrue.

Please publish a retraction.

I would also like the opportunity to reply briefly to the blog post and to Andrew Bostom’s.

I was very sorry to learn that Mr. Lipkes didn’t get paid. He gets my sympathies as a fellow writer — I know how much work it takes to produce 12,000 words. Fool that I am, I just assumed that a piece that long must have been commissioned for pay.

I’d also be happy to post his reply to Diana West and Andy Bostom. However, it would not be appropriate that it appear first at Gates of Vienna, since American Thinker denied Ms. West the right to publish an unedited reply and refused to publish Andy Bostom’s corrections. I’ve asked Mr.Lipkes to publish it at American Thinker or some other venue first, and then we can post substantial excerpts from it.

Needless to say, it would have been better for all concerned if those who disagreed were able to publish their responses at the same site that posted material about their work that they considered incorrect. But that’s water under the bridge.

This correction has also been added to the original post as an update.

For links to previous articles about the controversy over American Betrayal, see the Diana West Archives.

18 thoughts on “Correcting the Record”

  1. If he didnt get paid, whyever did he take the pain to write those 12 000 words? He must have had a heartfelt, deeply emotional motive, but what motive? Nicety to us readers, saving us from – from what? Simply saving us from making a fool of ourselves at tabletalk about histories long gone? Isn’t that a bit too trivial to account for 12 ooo words?
    I’d really like to look into the mind of Mr. Lipkes, and perhaps we could ask him politely to tell us something about his motivation.

    • Ah, that’s the clinker, ain’t it…”motivation”, that is.

      Okay, Baron, let’s see if I understand this story.

      You made an unsubstantiated claim that those twelve thousand words were commissioned by AT and they paid the author for his efforts.

      But that was not the case. In reality,

      (1) it was the writer his ownself who proposed a three-part opus to AT ;
      (2) his proposal and the subsequent effort was accepted by AT;
      (3) and both parties agreed it would be published as a voluntary public service in aid of the Truth.*

      *[I just threw in #3 as a bit of mind-reading]

      Well then. That’s a karma of a different color entirely.
      —————————————-

      Here’s my version of the entertainment:

      It’s been about a year now since Clarice Feldman published her “review” of Diana’s book at AT, honestly admitting (proudly avowing?) she hadn’t actually read said tome – which is why her effort is a “review”. Ms Feldman is an honorable person and she gave us the Truth as she saw it through the eyes of Mr. Radosh, whom she cites at length for her Authority.

      As any good Catholic girl would be, I’m attracted to the idea of ritual re-enactments, especially those which partake of the ritual slaughter of an Innocent by Authority.

      So as I see it, here we are a year later at bloody August. Time to pound in the nails again. Step right up y’all, and bang on the cement walls of that firmly planted Cordon Sanitaire: see if you get an answering tap in response. Don’t actually let your victim speak, though. Silencing the Innocent is important for the sake of Truth in any ritual re-enactment.

      In other words, welcome to the Second Annual DianaWest Evisceration Event. And a gala affair it is, what with the guest of honor being gagged and wearing a crown of thorns. Present your invitation and PhD credentials at the door. Black knives ties are optional.

      It’s a party!

      • OMG! I don’t care anymore. We are what we are and the United States is going to hell in a hand basket.
        Those that have speeded us on the way should rot in hell. Those that wish to support their position should tell us how to get out of this.
        Mr. Horowitz and his fellow travelers have no answers. I am looking for answers.

        • Oh Babs, aren’t we all? Looking for answers, I mean. Rooting through the refuse of the 20th century to figure out how in heaven’s name we arrived at this not-so-pretty pass.

          But here’s the problem: there aren’t any answers. Not any useful ones at any rate.

          We are at a hinge point, Babs. Not exactly a crossroads where you can turn right or left, but at a crux, a crossing point. With luck, while we won’t get any answers (that’s not how the world works anymore), with luck our questions will change.

          And that is the best we can hope for: to find our way out of this thicket by repeatedly changing our questions.

          We are what we are, but everyone’s perception of what we are is different.

          A good fallback position, a place to begin, is to dust off your Catholic prayerbook. Look up discernment. Patience. Benignity. I figure if I’m on my knees that makes it a little easier to hide under the bed when the time comes.

          Sooo…ain’t nobody here but us chickens, Babs. We live on chicken feed and bugs. At night we roost in the trees to hide from the coyotes.

    • There’s a village called Stogumber in Somerset (SW England), with a fine church. If it’s not a secret, do you hail from thereabouts?

  2. I’ve written nearly 1.5 million words for Rule of Reason and other websites, and haven’t been paid a dime (except when I’ve published collections of my columns, which are available on Amazon Books). Also, I’m the one who initiates the idea for a column. Yes, it’s a great chore to pen even a 3,000 word piece, never mind a 12,000 word one. So, Mr. Lipkes, what’s your problem? Why would you expect anyone to back-pedal and issue an apology for thinking that you were paid for such a long screed? One more observation: American Thinker has likely objected to Diana West’s and Andrew Bostom’s rebuttals because such rebuttals and corrections challenge the received narrative about WWII and how it was conducted by FDR and Company, a received wisdom that has become the default “history” taught in our educational establishment.

    • You have pointed to a reason I’d like to see more parents removing their children from the educational establishment. And now that the infamously inept Mr. Bill Gates has stuck in his thumb re curriculum those children are even more at risk for blinkered ignorance.

  3. I hope that when Mr. Lipkes realizes the folly of his words, and that he has a place where he too can print the necessary retractions when the time comes…..

    He is so intent on removing the speck from the Baron’s eye, but then maybe he cannot afford to get a mirror in order to look in his own, since he does the odd 12,000 words for free…

    But then maybe there is some leg pulling going on too.

  4. So the only thing he took issue with was his not getting paid to do what he did?

    I see …

  5. according to the Book of Proverbs, “in the multiplicity of words there is much folly.”

  6. “the editors of these venues are on salary, and the free-lancers who pen the screeds expect to be paid.”

    I would look more closely at what you actually said, and what this fellow is actually denying. Take each assertion on its own. T/F?

    Is he an exception to general truths about online magazine publishing & writing for same? He writes for nothing? Well good for him, if he has a little nest-egg somewhere that allows him to do that. But is the assertion “the editors of these venues are on salary” true? Is the assertion that freelance writers hope to get paid true?

    Has this fellow ever been paid by an online mag? Y/N. So he does expect to get paid when he submits an article to an online mag then.

    Or does he make a habit of writing 12 000 word articles for nothing? If he claims that he works for nothing, then he will be able to provide a list of examples of all the other 12 000 word articles he wrote for nothing to support that assertion.

    If this fellow wants clarity in what people are writing when it comes to the attacks on Diana West, then he needs to start by clarifying his own position re. writing for a living & for online mags in particular.

    And if he didn’t get paid for it, then he really needs to explain why he would take the time and make the effort to write a 12 000 word essay with no expectation of any reward.

    • And he wishes to deny that someone with money wants to besmirch DW – but he cannot prove that this assertion is false. He may not have been paid in this instance, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. So it is unreasonable to ask for it to be retracted.

      Mr. Lipkes may, as a matter of policy, work for nothing, but obviously that is not true for everyone. Websites cost money to run, editors need paying, writers need to put food on the table. So he may deny that people with money are behind this movement to attack DW but he cannot actually refute that assertion, so his personal request that this part of the Baron’s article be withdrawn is without foundation.

      All Mr. Lipkes has is his own assertion that in this one specific instance, he did not get paid for writing one particular article.

      • ah, but it’s a pleasure to have the opportunity to apologize to someone who states so clearly why he thinks he’s been done wrong.

        Just contemplate the karmic possibilities here, Nick! Not wrong, as you say, but perceived to have been wronged and now the wrong is righted. Perceptibly so. Does not the soul expand with compassion?

        • You’re right, I forgot to take into account the possibility that someone’s feelings might have been hurt. That makes all the difference, obviously.

    • We’re getting there. First they have to turn the ship of state around to make it a command economy but given the sheer size/numbers of government workers now extant, that becomes easier by the day. We produce less and less as we continue to consume. The cozy connection between govt and Walmart is totally ignored by the intelligentsia – the ones who hate business and love government…

      …I think Walmart hasn’t much choice. Their gonads are even now being placed in the governmental vise. Remember the USSR’s GUM department store(s)? A short jump from GUM to Walmart. Same short jump from the lumpenproletariat to the nomenklatura.

      Can samizdat information be far behind?

      We love our leaders. One of them, more witless than most, is even named Uncle Joe. Doesn’t get much cozier than that.

  8. Here are 177 words from the current American Thinker website:

    “Note that American Thinker accepts submission of material for publication only via e-mail. We cannot accept manuscripts mailed to us. American Thinker does not pay.”

    Blogs and articles

    “American Thinker is divided into two sections: blogs and articles.

    “Blogs generally cover breaking news. We prefer to add value to recently published material in the form of analysis, links to related items, and other original input. If you wish to submit a blog post, please keep use of quotations within Fair Use copyright guidelines. In practical terms, this means keeping quoted material under two hundred words per item quoted, and substantially less if the original item is short.

    “Articles provide analysis and new information on topics of importance to Americans. We want to advance the national conversation with fresh insight. Polemics for their own sake and recapitulations of what has been published elsewhere are not normally of interest.”

    Word count

    “Blogs can vary in length. Articles should be 800 to 1,200 words. (Articles may be longer than 1,200 words at the publisher’s discretion and with the editor’s permission.)”

    Egghead: So, if American Thinker published a “12,000-word three-part article,” then that series was more than TEN times as long as the typical article….

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