By: Fern Sidman
Seems like the idyllic summer vacation destination for the affluent and politically influential is witnessing some tense times. The island of Martha’s Vineyard near Cape Cod has always attracted a garden variety of liberal Democrats and that includes our 44th president, Barack Obama and his family. But now, according to recent reports, political animosity is taking center stage.
According to a report on Page Six of the New York Post, this past weekend, famed constitutional attorney and retired Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, was verbally assaulted by television writer and comedian Larry David. It seems that David ran into Dershowitz on the porch of the Chilmark General Store which represents a hub of this high brow community.
A little context before we proceed with the bizarre exchange between these two. Like David, Dershowitz was once considered a bona fide liberal with leftist political credentials. Over the years, however, he has arrived at the stark realization that folks on the “hard left” are totally intolerant and behave abhorrently towards those who defend constitutional precepts.
When Dershowitz defended former President Donald Trump in his first impeachment trial, not only was he publicly excoriated by erstwhile liberal colleagues, but in many ways, he also became persona non grata amongst the elites on Martha’s Vineyard. In July of 2018, he remarked that in an op-ed that he penned for “The Hill” that he was being shunned for publicly arguing against impeaching President Trump on television talk shows and in his books.
“I never thought I would see McCarthyism come to Martha’s Vineyard, but I have.” He continued: “For them, it is enough that what I have said about the Constitution might help Trump, so they are shunning me and trying to ban me from their social life on Martha’s Vineyard.”
Now, in the summer of 2021, Dershowitz reached out with an olive branch to David but the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star launched into a verbal tirade of sorts against the Harvard law professor.
According to the report in the New York Post, a Page Six spy who happened to be at the scene of the bizarre exchange, recorded it verbatim.
Dershowitz: “We can still talk, Larry.”
David: “No. No. We really can’t. I saw you. I saw you with your arm around former Trump Secretary of State Mike Pompeo! It’s disgusting!”
Dersh: “He’s my former student [at Harvard Law]. I greet all of my former students that way. I can’t greet my former students?”
David: “It’s disgusting. Your whole enclave — it’s disgusting. You’re disgusting!”
Added the stunned source, “Larry walks away. Alan takes off his T-shirt to reveal another T-shirt underneath it that says, ‘It’s The Constitution Stupid!’.”
When contacted by the New York Post for a comment on this altercation,Dershowitz confirmed the exchange. He told the paper that he and David had been friends for many years until he began working with the Trump defense team. Dershowitz added that he had provided assistance to David in getting one of his daughters into college and had even represented David pro bono in a legal matter that he had on Martha’s Vineyard.
Deshowitz said that upon seeing David at the Martha’s Vineyard store, he greeted him but David walked away from him. It was then that Dershowitz said, “We can still talk, Larry.” At that juncture, David began yelling and screaming at Dershowitz. The lawyer told the Post that David’s face turned bright red from uncontrollable anger. He added that, “I was worried that he was going to have a stroke.”
As a former student at Harvard Law School, Pompeo has been seen with Dershowitz over the years and the Post reported that Dershowitz told them that he “worked with Pompeo on his department’s policy regarding Israel and the Palestinians and has been invited to the White House by both the Trump administration and the Israeli government to celebrate it.”
According to the Post report, Dershowitz lamented the fact that David cannot grasp the notion of why he would work with any administration on peace for Israel, regardless of who was occupying the Oval Office.
Speaking to Page Six, Dershowitz said, “Larry is a knee-jerk radical. He takes his politics from Hollywood. He doesn’t read a lot. He doesn’t think a lot.” He added that, “It’s typical of what happens now on the Vineyard. People won’t talk to each other if they don’t agree with their politics.”
Dershowitz also expressed his frustration about David’s rude behavior by telling the Post, “While he was writing bad jokes, I was helping to bring about peace in the Middle East. What has he done?”
It also appears that David is not the only friend that Dershowitz has lost. He ruefully observed, “that’s the price of principle.” The Post reported that Dershowitz told them that his “principles require” that he defend the Constitution, and that he felt the first impeachment of Trump was unconstitutional.
“I’m a liberal Democrat and I voted for Biden just as enthusiastically as Larry did,” Dershowitz told the Post. He added that, “David is guilty of contemporary McCarthyism. McCarthy would have been proud of him.” He said that in the ’50s, political witch hunter Joseph McCarthy “went after lawyers who represented people he disagreed with.”
Dershowitz, however, told the Post that he is totally willing to bury the hatchet with David and try to patch things up by extending a hand of friendship “if Larry wants to talk about any of this.”
He told the Post, “I won’t get into a screaming match with him. If he wants to scream, he’ll have to scream alone.”
An unnamed media commentator who spoke with the Jewish Voice on the condition of anonymity said that, “In my mind, David is the biggest hypocrite on them all. After all, if his freedom of speech rights and his freedom of expression were denied to him, he would not be able to produce the kind of outrageous and controversial brand of humor that he puts forth on a regular basis. But in David’s warped perspective, he is being “righteous” by shunning and snubbing, and yelling at someone he used to call a friend, just because that person is defending the constitution. Besides that, Dershowitz has the complete right to act as a defense counsel for Donald Trump. David is acting like a fascist and totalitarian and he should be ashamed of himself.”
