Lest you think that I was too generous in my words about him. I am aware of his political failings:
"In his final book, “Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of
the First Amendment,” published in 2008, Mr. Lewis wrote that he was
inclined to relax some of the most stringent First Amendment protections
“in an age when words have inspired acts of mass murder and terrorism.”
In particular, he said he might reconsider the conventional view that
there was only one justification for making incitement a crime: the
likelihood of imminent violence.
Mr. Lewis wrote that there was “genuinely dangerous” speech that did not
meet the imminence requirement. “I think we should be able to punish
speech that urges terrorist violence to an audience, some of whose
members are ready to act on the urging,” Mr. Lewis wrote. “That is
imminence enough.”
Much as he loved and admired the press, Mr. Lewis considered the courts
to be the bedrock institution of American freedom.
“His lifelong faith in judges dominates his legal thinking,” Mr. Frankel
said. “No matter how mistaken or craven” a court might be, he added,
Mr. Lewis saw the judiciary “as the ultimate safeguard of our
democracy.”"
