Nothing screams virtue like rushing to defend the nation’s worst free-speech offender so it can continue stomping on the values you hold dear.

Perhaps the attempt of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) to protect Harvard University from being bullied into reforming its racist, antisemitic, cancel culture practices is meant to evoke cherished memories of the old ACLU defending neo-Nazis who wanted to march in Skokie. Armchair intellectuals are duly impressed.

Every advocacy organization has to choose where to invest its political capital, and how to deploy its limited resources. Elitist universities have done more damage to the fabric of America than the Taliban. Why throw them a lifeline now that the tide is finally turning?

FIRE’s argument is that the executive powers that Trump is using to make Harvard obey the law could be abused by a future president. Hello. Isn’t the abuse of civil rights laws what plunged us into this mess in the first place?

Remember when President “Chicago Way” said “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun?” Now that Trump has whipped out a bazooka, where is the quote from FIRE reminding Harvard that “He who sows the wind reaps the whirlwind?”

So it is with a doleful sigh, rather than his usual hearty aargh, that in this battle to save America from the Woke Mind Virus, the Beaver must serve up a fart in FIRE’s general direction.