Usually, the panel section of a black-tie awards dinner is the least lively part of the evening. Honorees praise and agree with each other, soundtracked by the clinks of forks as guests cautiously push salad around their plates. Not so at RealClear’s third Samizdat Awards, AKA the Sammies, which took place at the Breakers in Palm Beach Wednesday.
Things started off sedately, with Turning Point USA’s Andrew Kolvet talking about Charlie Kirk, on whose behalf he received the Samizdat Prize. Next, Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan discussed the repercussions he’d faced in Britain for his trans-critical views, for which he garnered sympathy from the room’s guests, who largely trended right-of-center.
Then it was Alan Dershowitz’s turn. “One thing I wanna do is congratulate this organization for giving the two of us an award, because I couldn’t disagree more about everything that was just said about transgender. I am completely in favor of recognizing transgender rights, and acknowledging if people want to be a woman or a man, they can be that. I don’t believe God bestowed biological destiny on anybody,” Dershowitz said, as audience members started to boo. “Fine, boo me, but you gave me an award for my free speech and I’m gonna exercise my free speech!” The crowd then erupted into applause.
The audience’s resolve had been tested earlier during the opening remarks from RealClear’s publisher David DesRosiers. “We need to make free speech and the free exercise without government interference a shared bipartisan political value and common defense. Whatever you think of Don Lemon,” DesRosiers said, pausing to allow a heckle. “He was an embedded journalist and he should be treated as such. The rest of the folks in his party, that he was with, don’t have the same protection. And I think Professor Dershowitz would agree with me… Don Lemon doesn’t deserve a Sammy, but he doesn’t deserve to be in a slammer. And I think that’s a distinction worth a difference. And I think it’s something that if you care for the First Amendment, we don’t play the ‘me and thee’ card.”
He said later: “Free speech is a ‘better when we’re together’ cause.” Guests enjoyed a Maine lobster salad, artichoke butter soufflé filet mignon and a trio of desserts, accompanied by Sancerre or Cabernet Sauvignon.
Spotted: Glenn Beck; John Bachman; Tom Bevan; Carl Cannon; Ann Coulter; Josh Christenson; Fabiana, Maureen and David DesRosiers; Paul du Quenoy; Gabe Kaminsky; Roger Kimball; Karol and Shai Markowicz; Julio Rosas; Dave Rubin; Freddie Sayers, and Sam Schneider.
Who watches the watchers?
One quirk of the Samizdat seating plan put Matthew Tyrmand, former board member for Project Veritas, one table away from Lidia Monroe, the woman who days before had been covertly filming him on behalf of James O’Keefe’s new undercover operation, O’Keefe Media Group.
“It’s just God having a sense of humor,” Tyrmand told Cockburn. “With where I was seated, she’s at the diagonal between two people’s shoulders. I was just glaring at her for an hour during the whole panel.”
O’Keefe released a half-hour video Monday in which Tyrmand makes some rather fruity comments about O’Keefe, describing him as “evil” and saying, “I would kill him.” When confronted by O’Keefe, Tyrmand stresses that he was speaking metaphorically. “When a kid spills milk on the ground and you hear their parent say, ‘shit, I’d kill my kid,’ that doesn’t mean you call Department of Child and Family Services and take the kid away from them.” (For a crash course on O’Keefe’s departure from Project Veritas, revisit this piece from Cockburn’s former colleague Amber Duke.)
Tyrmand says he and Monroe had known each other on social media “for years” before they finally met in October when she moved to his neighborhood in Florida. “I don’t think she recorded me until after we went out twice casually,” Tyrmand says. Tyrmand accuses Monroe of stealing a copy of O’Keefe’s book from his apartment, which he had used for target practice before a deer hunting trip. (O’Keefe presents Tyrmand with the book in his video; Tyrmand demands its return.) “I’m working with lawyers on criminal charges,” Tyrmand says. Given Project Veritas and O’Keefe’s reputation for covert filming, did Tyrmand not see the prospect of an O’Keefe sting coming? “He’s been trying for three years, yeah, of course. I didn’t think it would be someone I had an acquaintanceship with for eight, nine, ten years, but here we are.”
“He’s never asked me for comment once in three years,” Tyrmand says of O’Keefe. “This is the first time he asked me for comment, and we spoke for 20 minutes, and he chopped up two minutes of it, three minutes of it to spin it. I let loose a litany of his lies, that didn’t seem to make his cut.”
“I’m not a public figure,” says Tyrmand. “But this is what he’s spending his energy on now. He’s trying to commit tortious interference with anyone I’ve ever worked with. He’s harassing companies I’m affiliated with. The mob is pretty ugly.
“I said to him, my conversations with the FBI were about you, because you caused me to get nonstop death threats for six months. I didn’t want this. I’m being victimized by a narcissistic maniac.”
On our radar
OH NOEM The Department of Homeland Security is on the brink of a shutdown as lawmakers leave Washington without a deal to fund it.
PARDON ME President Trump pardoned a number of former athletes on various drug and financial charges, including Mets star Darryl Strawberry and the late Billy Cannon.
HIGH-FASHION MOGGING Looksmaxxing influencer Clavicular was freed from jail in Arizona, allegedly thanks to Peter Thiel, to walk during Elena Velez’s show at New York Fashion Week.
Beggs the question
“When I get sworn into Congress, I’ll be the youngest mom to have ever served,” says Virginia congressional candidate Elizabeth Dempsey Beggs, tying her sneakers while leaning toward the camera, her assets quite visible, in what looks to be a well-equipped home gym. “And I’m not telling you that to brag,” she says, in a cutaway to a substantial and impressive pull-up.
“It’s because it’s ridiculous,” she says. “I mean, do you know the youngest dad to have ever served?”
Cockburn can tell you the answer is probably William Charles Cole Claiborne, who won election in Tennessee (Andrew Jackson’s seat) in 1797 at age 22. The historical record shows he had a daughter who died of yellow fever in 1804, which would make him younger than the 28-year-old Elizabeth Dempsey Beggs.
Beggs is a foster mother, a biological mother and a veteran, and says in her video, filmed last month, “if you want something said, ask a man. And if you want something done, ask a woman, and my lived experience matters just as much as what’s on my professional résumé.” She knows how unaffordable daycare is, she knows how expensive housing is – and she can talk about it all while running on a treadmill. Yes, she is a Democrat.
More mischief and mayhem
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Re Dershowitz: it's not quite about trans rights. I agree that as an adult, people are free to be and act as they want (within the limits of the law). The big difference is regarding children who should not be able to act as an adult until they are an adult: ie. no body part cut off until they are of the age of consent and not coerced into irrevocable decisions by people with an agenda.
Re Lemon: he's done worse than others who have been arrested outside abortion clinics: he went inside and actively took part in preventing people from free worship. He is a coward hinding behind his journalistic mask. Can anyone defending his "right as a journalist" show me their bona fides regarding how outrageously and inappropriately the Biden administration used the same laws against pro-life demonstrators?
It's scary when everyone talks at the same time and says the same thing. That's why this place is so reassuring