Sympathy for the devil

Mark Steyn has a new friend. "I was unfamiliar with the sterling work of Marc Lemire's lawyer, Barbara Kulaszka. But she's awful good," he gushes.

The name rang a bell. Oh, yes, the lawyer who made a career out of defending far-right nutbars like Ernst Zündel-- the one who edited a book called Did Six Million Really Die? Report of the Evidence in the Canadian 'False News' Trial of Ernst Zündel -- 1988. A foreword is provided by Robert Faurisson. A Holocaust-denying pamphlet is included as an Appendix.

In her editor's preface, Kulaszka writes:

Zündel was being portrayed in the media as a man of hatred; but the man I saw in the courtroom was calm and always gracious to everyone he dealt with. When he testified, he did not repudiate his belief in Germans or Germany or Adolf Hitler. He expressed clearly his admiration for their accomplishments and his disbelief that they had committed what is known as the "Holocaust". Perhaps I had never really known what it meant to be courageous before that trial; but I knew what it meant after I watched Ernst Zündel testify to his true beliefs notwithstanding his knowledge that the voicing of those beliefs would almost certainly seal his conviction.

And everyday as I watched defence attorney Douglas Christie, his legal assistant Keltie Zubko and the various defence witnesses make their way through crowds of hostile Jews, some of whom spat on them, as I watched them being savaged by a hysterical media, as I experienced the lynch-mob atmosphere of that trial day after day, I learned again and again what real courage was and what real dedication to the principles of a free society meant. It affected me profoundly. When the second Zündel trial began in 1988, it was no accident that I had also become part of the defence team.

Ah, the courageous Aryan Ernst Zündel, beset by "crowds of hostile Jews." One can only be inspired by such an example of bravery. Right?

Strange bedfellows in the war on Human Rights Commissions? Or just bedfellows? You decide.

UPDATE: (March 22)

Steyn has added a PS longer than his original post, an apologia of sorts: "Yes, yes, I know Ms Kulaszka has unsavoury associations - Ernst Zundel et al. But I'm not looking for a date, I'm admiring her pushback against an out-of-control state agency."

Ah. Jetzt ist alles klar. My seething brain is constructing a PPS already: "Albert Speer sure could design a mean public building. And Hitler--well, besides that, he was a hell of a public speaker, wasn't he? And that Eichmann guy--what a head for figures he had!"