Dr. Frank's What's-it

And the winner of the award for outstanding achievement in journalistic excellence for the facilitation of totalitarian mass murder is...

Over at Dean's World, Don Pesci argues the case for revoking Walter Duranty's embarrassing Pulitzer Prize. I agree with the impulse, and I wouldn't be sorry if the prize were to be rescinded. However, part of me believes the lesson would be more pointed if the prize were to remain and to stand as a monument to the seductive power of the totalitarian apologist, the gullibility of a public and a journalistic profession eager to be seduced, and to the dangers consonant with a lack of journalistic scruples and judgment. Rewriting history (even if it's only the history of the vain prizes professionals award each other) isn't always the best way to learn from it, and is in some respects a funny sort of way to express criticism of history-falsifiers. Perhaps it would be better, and more appropriate, if we continued to refer to him accurately as Pulitzer Prize-winning Stalin Apologist Walter Duranty. Otherwise, aren't we leaving out the most outrageous, the most instructive, part? On balance, though, if I had a vote, I suppose I'd vote to rescind. Not totally sure, though.