Yeshivish – anyone can get haskamos, especially grandchildren of gedolei yisroel(i had refrained from calling him by name because of the kovod of rav henkin) who put on hats and make themselves appealing to choshuve people. Haskomos usually say that they did not read the contents. If the contents of a sefer are not the result of serious study, then we are forced to reinterpret the haskama, not the sefer.
Rav Moshe gave haskomos to a lot of people he didn’t agree with, but the wording was very revealing. I recall a mizrachi guy who wrote a sefer on rashi, and rav moshe refers to him as Mr in the haskama and writes very pareve things about him – fitting who he was.
As for bizui talmidei chachamim, if you notice, I am careful about how I speak about rabbi shechter, rabbi willig and moreso rabbi yoshe ber Soloveitchik. That doesn’t mean they are immune to criticism and that they have acheived the status of people to whom we are to submit ourselves to as subjects of “lo sasur”. Nor does it mean that because someone is a gavra in learning that his opinioks suddenly become daas torah when the Torah community has ignored or disavowed them. Shlomo carlebach was a serious talmid chochom at one point in his life; it doesn’t mean what he did was ok, and he admitted that himself. Rabbi yoshe ber likewise wrote in 5 drashos that MO is not going to reach great heights (he was a brisker after all) but is necessary to save Judaism, and that the yeshiva world wouldn’t last….of course Judaism is alive and well in the Torah world, and is a flickering candle in MO – puk chazi!
Bemakom chilul hashem ain cholkin kovod le’rav – it’s not a “kulah” as in kulos and chumros, to point out the spiritual bankruptcy of a divergent movement, whatever individuals are involved and however knowledgeable they are in Torah. If one day, my rebbe rav Belsky would have chas veshalom gotten up and said to ordain women – ad kan; there’s no emunas chachamim when a chacham changes the Torah or violates it.
Yochanan kohen gadol ended up becoming a tzeduka after being kohen gadol for 80 years! It’s possible.
As for being mevatel an asei with techeles….we haven’t had it for 1500 years, and we pasken that ain techeles maakeves es halavan; we don’t consider the baal hamaor’s shita of it being hotzaah in reshus horabim either…the brisker rov may have been choshesh, but he didn’t go travelling the world trying to find techeles either – he had more important things to do. Certainly then, when a house is on fire, you don’t run to save the plastic cups…MO is awash in sin, not “kulos”, plain old aveiros, some willfully, some because of ignorance, but malei avvon either way – MO leaders should save what’s important, and not pretend that nothing’s wrong.