Jeffrey Epstein strikes me as a massive distraction from any issue that actually matters, but the involvement of Chomsky in this sordid story has been a gift to the Chomsky haters. Chomsky, as most readers will know, suffered a serious stroke a couple of years ago, and can’t communicate. His wife has now issued a statement about this whole affair. It seems to me perfectly fair, and honest in its mea culpa. Epstein was obviously a career conman, even before he became the world’s best-known pedophile. An elderly Chomsky, facing financial problems of his own, was an easy mark.

(As an amusing sidenote, Chomsky hater Marko Attila Hoare, an historian at the University of Sarajevo, was gloating on social media about the Epstein files and Chomsky, even expressing his pleasure that my 2005 dissection of him (and the absurd Oliver Kamm) had disappeared from the Internet. He did not realize that the blog had changed platforms. I came across this while looking at some of the social media reactions to the Epstein/Chomsky stuff. Being a nice guy, I said I was surprised he was still “wounded” by this twenty years later, and shared the new link. His responses were dumber than I would have expected from a guy with a PhD in history from Cambridge. I’m sure these sorry creatures will respond equally intelligently to Valeria Chomsky’s statement.)