Here is a good chunk of Clemons’ commentary.

On Aug. 12, Yoshihisa Komori -- a Washington-based editorialist for the ultra-conservative Sankei Shimbun newspaper -- attacked an article by Masaru Tamamoto, the editor of Commentary, an online journal run by the Japan Institute of International Affairs. The article expressed concern about the emergence of Japan's strident new "hawkish nationalism," exemplified by anti-China fear-mongering and official visits to a shrine honoring Japan's war dead. Komori branded the piece "anti-Japanese," and assailed the mainstream author as an "extreme leftist intellectual."

But he didn't stop there. Komori demanded that the institute's president, Yukio Satoh, apologize for using taxpayer money to support a writer who dared to question Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's annual visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, in defiance of Chinese protests that it honors war criminals from World War II.

Remarkably, Satoh complied. Within 24 hours, he had shut down Commentary and withdrawn all of the past content on the site -- including his own statement that it should be a place for candid discourse on Japan's foreign-policy and national-identity challenges. Satoh also sent a letter last week to the Sankei editorial board asking for forgiveness and promising a complete overhaul of Commentary's editorial management.

Clemons goes on to report that what is particularly troubling about Japan’s current right-wing nationalistic push is that

it's working -- and that it has found some mutualism in the media. . . .What's worse, neither Japan's current prime minister nor Shinzo Abe, the man likely to succeed him in next month's elections, has said anything to denounce those trying to stifle the free speech of Japan's leading moderates.

Furthermore, the result of this atmosphere is that

dozens of Japan's top academics, journalists and government civil servants . . . pleaded with [Clemons] not to disclose this or that incident because they feared violence and harassment from the right. One top political commentator in Japan wrote . . . "I know the right-wingers are monitoring what I write and waiting to give me further trouble. I simply don't want to waste my time nor energy for these people."

Reading an account like this really makes one glad that in this country we still basically cling to the idea that open debate and discussion is a right and a value worth fighting for. The kind of intimidation and silencing Clemons describes is not something that we experience in this country routinely and certainly not at the level of public apologies and pleas for forgiveness.

Sure we have ultra-conservative commentators (read: David Horowitz) and media outlets (read: FrontPageMag) and we even have instances where those commentators attack some liberal adversary for suggesting that this country should have an alternative viewpoint on our country’s current policy direction. But such smears are not met with apologies, but rather with factual rebuttals. Even top officials who attack those who question the direction this country’s leadership (read: the majority of the country) are not above public commentary and criticism.

That said, I take Clemons’ piece as a cautionary tale. The kind of organized right-wing attacks he discusses is not so far from the machine we see at work in this country. And it is for that reason, that I believe Free Exchange’s fight against Horowitz and company is so important. Not because Horowitz is right or even accurate. Not because we are fear-mongers who believe that we are on the verge of some sort of nationalistic, authoritarian state. But rather because we believe that institutions, such as higher education and the media, require special protections. It is imperative for us to protect the ideals of academic freedom and free speech, and oppose state intervention into institutions whose mission, in part, is to raise the difficult questions. We need to protect critical inquiry and free exchange of ideas that happens at our colleges and universities and in our national press.

It is, as they say, a slippery slope. Let’s stay away from even the edge of it.