My distant ancestor Aesop (just kidding, folks) was fond of fables, so let me follow in his footsteps. This is the story of the Gadfly and the Pervert.

Norman Finklestein was a Maoist revolutionary when young, which he claims bedeviled his academic career. It took him 13 years to get his doctorate from Princeton but it wasn’t his Maoism that kept him back. Anything but. Instead, it was his analysis of Zionism. After a series of adjunct posts, Finklestein arrived at DePaul University, where he immediately encountered problems. The reason lay in the success of his European best seller The Holocaust Industry. In it, Norman Finkelstein refers to certain Jewish activists in delicate terms—as a "repellent gang of plutocrats, hoodlums and hucksters" intent on extorting reparations (see Switzerland) and unjustly favorable treatment for Israel. Finkelstein speaks as the son of survivors of the Warsaw ghetto and Nazi death camps—but a faithful leftist who sees justice in the Palestinian cause. As the wise Dr. Paul Gottfried has detailed on this Web site, Dr. Finklestein has recently lost a tenure battle at DePaul (a formally Catholic school), thanks to cage-rattling by none other than Alan Dershowitz—who along with Abe Foxman is the leading contemporary cause of anti-Semitism. Dershowitz managed through intimidation, threats and the use of the media to bully DePaul into firing Finkelstein—who at present has no job and even less prospects of getting one. He lives very modestly in a dilapidated Queens apartment left him by his father.

A very different sort of man is Jeffrey Epstein, same age as Finkelstein, 52, also born poor. (Another key difference: Epstein has a thick Brooklyn accent—he calls a bird a “boid”.) Unlike Finklestein, Epstein “made good,” ending up a billionaire. He is also a pervert, a child molester and obviously belongs behind bars. But Epstein is as likely to do time as I am to cheerlead the ghastly Hillary Clinton. You see, Epstein is smart enough not to kick any asses; instead he kisses them—literally. While never had a degree, he managed to teach physics at the Dalton school on the Upper East Side of New York city. (Remind me to make sure not to send my grandchildren there). He cultivated wealthy friends like Ace Greenberg of Bear Stearns and Leslie Wexner of The Limited, who helped push him to the top, whatever that means. Epstein sold himself as a financial adviser to the rich and famous, and hit the big time as far as publicity is concerned when he invited the press to cover his trip to Africa with his guest Bill Clinton on his private jet. Obviously there were similarities between the two. Both had dodged the draft, both were sexually suspect. Clinton likes to push women around, while Epstein likes to bully young girls.

After months of rumors, the Palm Beach police finally intervened when it was discovered that Epstein’s game was bringing carloads of under-age redneckettes to his palatial PB house for “massages” complete with sex toys and the rest of paraphernalia Epstein needs to get aroused. Some of the girls have testified they visited the pervert more than 100 times, and had to have intercourse not only with him but also his 19 year-old Serb girlfriend. Epstein bragged that he had bought the Serb from her parents. Step in Alan Dershowitz, as Epstein’s advisor. The gruesome Dersh has very few keys on his piano, so the first thing he advised was for Epstein to claim that the police were motivated by anti-Semitism. In Florida. Although the cops and the Feds have Epstein cold—the trial is supposed to begin after the new year in West Palm Beach—I am betting the farm that it will never take place. Dershowitz and Epstein have the means and influence (i.e. Clinton) to bully or corrupt the prosecutors, so I am sure a settlement will be reached—with no jail time or admission of guilt. After all, this is the land of the free—where we set free the likes of OJ Simpson, Robert Blake and Phil Spector, and hound good men like Norman Finklestein into obscurity and penury.