utterly unfamiliar with the inexhaustible energy, bulldog tenacity and all around orneriness of local celebrity Ezra Levant.
Levant wasted little time doing everything other targets of the HRCs had avoided, either out of misguided principle or sheer cowardice: he leveraged a lifetime’s worth of powerful connections, the miraculous “compound interest” of free publicity and his undeniable talents as a polemicist to go on the offensive. Literally.
(…)
Levant’s generosity of spirit is an aspect of his personality that’s often obscured by his high voltage polemics. He doesn’t boast about his pro bono work or his unsolicited gestures of support for fellow “free speechers.” When he and I and a group of other bloggers were sued this year for criticizing the tactics of a former HRC investigator, the first person to call me was Ezra Levant, who’d naturally seen my name on his copy of the Statement of Claim. As I wept into the telephone receiver, Ezra tried to cheer me up: “I still remember the first time I got served,” he reminisced. “I was in my first year of law school …”
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I can’t remember whether or not I’ve already posted this: the Interim asked me to write the story when they named Ezra Levant their Person of the Year. Now the piece is online.
