David Horowitz hates ME!!!!!

Woo-hoo! I have now made the scene, the big time. I am da man! I am right up there with, erm, Michael Berube!

Yes, lowly ol' me, lucky to get 50 hits a day on my meagre blog, I have achieved something only a select few can: I have been dissed by David Horowitz:

I was surfing the blogosphere the other day and came across an eye-catching sentence on a blog called “Folkbum’s Rambles and Rants,” which describes itself as being “A Small Squeaky Cog in the Vast Leftwing Conspiracy.” [ed. he can't even cut and paste right; I know that left-wing is a hyphenate] Actually it was two sentences that caught my eye and they went like this: “Do we also have to start rounding up the college professors and putting them in camps? David Horowitz is this close to being that explicit.”

In the course of my campaign for academic freedom on college campuses, I’ve grown used to malicious, mendacious and unprincipled attacks from leftists in general and Democrats in particular, people who generally like to preen themselves as “liberals” but haven’t had a tolerant impulse in years. [. . .]

Folkbum’s suggestion that I am out to put professors into camps certainly raises the bar a bit. This is the first time I believe that my modest proposal to hold academics to their own academic freedom guidelines while extending them to students has been called “Nazi.” Where could Folkbum have come up with this idea?

As it happens, the link from my name leads to a site created by John Podesta, Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff, and George Soros’ current point man at the Center for American Progress. Podesta’s site, called Think Progress is one of many that Podesta has launched from his 501©3 cum Political Action Committee. The link from my name on Folkbum takes the reader to a page on the Podesta site which is part of its regular feature “Radical Right-wing Agenda.”

First: "Surfing the blogosphere" my ass! The man was doing a Technorati search on his own name, the egotistical bastard. (I get little enough traffic, I know where most of it comes from.) Maybe not egotistical, exactly, but it seems clear from the way he wrote the article that he was trolling for someone saying bad things about him. I guess he has to earn that paycheck somehow.

Horowitz, since he's not one of my three or four regular readers, seemed to miss the fact that I use a lot of hyperbole. Let me give you the full context of the sentences he is quoting, found in a post titled, "Evolution vs. Creationism," and you decide if you think I'm being serious:

Recent weeks have brought us the Terri Schiavo debacle, in which prominent public Christians everywhere saw a train and rode it until the money stopped coming in; the death of the Pope and everyone who had ever once called him senile or wacko trying to say how much Bush was just as holy as he was; the "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith" conference, featuring conservative activists quoting Satlin ; and, tonight, "Justice Sunday," wherein the nation's Republican and Christian leaders gather to make the case on national television that Democrat=Godless Heathen. [. . .]

But the arguments for ID and against evolution have gotten more insidious. Take this guy: "But pastor and parent Ray Mummert, 54, explained their point. 'If we continue to indoctrinate our young people with non-religious principles, we're headed for an internal destruction of this society,' he said. [. . .] 'We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture,' he said."

It puts me in mind of the "Bart's Comet" episode of "The Simpsons." In order to make certain that another comet never threatens to destroy the town again, the good people of Springfield decide to destroy the observatory. When it becomes a problem for people to be educated, then you know we've gone too far. Is it not enough that we have people quoting Stalin? Do we also have to start rounding up the college professors and putting them in camps? David Horowitz is this close to being that explicit.

Yes, ladies and gentleman, in a paragraph where my most salient point is based on an episode of "The Simpsons," I am deathly earnest in my "suggestion that [Horowitz is] out to put professors into camps."

I'm not seriously suggesting any such thing, although, as others have noted before me, the efforts of Horowitz and his ilk to impose strict ideological restrictions on institutions of higher learning are pretty frightening. More frightening is Horowitz's "database" (that's a link to Salon; get the day pass and read the whole thing) which links nice guys like Barack Obama to terrorists like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Sadly, I searched the database and found that I have not yet been added. (David, if you're reading this--and given your tendency to Technorati yourself, I bet you are!--let me know if you need a head shot, 'kay?)

At any rate, click through to the Think Progress link I originally used. Read up. Then Technorati Horowitz, and read more about him. He is the lunatic fringe. Me? I'm happy to just stay a small, squeaky cog.