LETTER TO PHI BETA KAPPA MEMBERS RE AMERICAN SCHOLAR

# 5 SENDING OF 6.
Dear Phi Beta Kappans:
Your preamble states that:
"The ideal Phi Beta Kappan has demonstrated intellectual integrity, tolerance for other views." It is in light of this standard that I want to call your attention to a heinous short fall, a travesty of travesties, an assassination of character and work that appears, of all unexpected places, in the Spring 07 issue of The American Scholar where it takes the form of a most primitive and meretricious attack - both political and literary - by a certain Michael McDonald, counsel for "The American Interest," on the by no means infallible but uniquely great writer Peter Handke; a political attack based on Handke's "being soft on Milosevic", a literary attack based on a single paragraph whose function within the [1974] novel "A Moment of True Feeling" that the assassin has not read.
It is my feeling that an editor who allows publication of a travesty such as Michael McDonald's ought to be forced to resign, he has lost all credibility and scholarly standing. McDonald is of little concern to me; he is one of those uniquely vile beings, albeit an untalented member of this species, that began - under the conditions such as they are - to appear in droves in all walks and works of life in the early 80s, that entire range from "Diego Cortez", Adam Gopnik [a talented member], Milken, Newt Gingrich, Stephen Schwartz to name just a few representatives of this class.

Below you will find links to my open letter to Editor Wilson. The three-part letter [A-B-C] and my detailed critique, in entirety, can be found at:
http://www.handke-discussion.blogspot.com

Below the letter in its entirety A-B-C