I can’t remember the first time I met Dovie Eisner, which is odd given that he always stood out, his small broken body wheelchair-bound with a breathing tube as a result of his being born with a recessive genetic neuromuscular condition called Nemoline Myothapy, but I do remember the last time.From about 2012 until he slipped into a coma last year, and passed away last week on Sept.11, Dovie was a central figure in the small world of conservative writing and thinking in New York City.
It was a group that, along with myself, included the likes of Karol Markowitz, Sohrab Ahmari, and Armin Rosin.Basically, if you had ever written a right wing op-ed in Gotham, you were a friend of Dovie.Dovie’s position in this circle was entirely of his own volition.
He would seek us out, often one by one, first through social media, then a lunch or dinner carefully choreographed to accommodate his severe disability.I’ve never known anyone so anxious to be on the scene, nor so deserving.CATHOLIC NUNS SUE NEW YORK, SAY ASSISTED SUICIDE LAW FORCES THEM TO VIOLATE THEIR FAITHFLAG FOR EDITOR REVIEW: insufficient or unclear information.
(Jason Epstein)When Dovie would see a photo of a meet-up he had not attended, he would simply reply, "Why wasn’t I invited?" which became an inside joke for us, summing up all life’s little disappointments.As a thinker, Dovie was top-notch, and two lights shone brightest in his philosophy: the importance of fairness and the importance of life.Intellectually, Dovie was a tireless — and I’ll be honest, sometimes even annoying — devil’s advocate, with an extraordinary ability to see the best arguments of all sides.There you would be, waxing poetic about free speech absolutism, and in his quiet wheeze of a voice, he would start listing off exceptions — as if he had a Black’s Law Dictionary stashed somewhere in his wheelchair.In retrospect, it is amazing that someone whom life dealt with so unfairly held so dear to his broken breast the i...