I’ll confess that I used to enjoy reading David Horowitz’s columns. Of course those who are familiar with my political views know that I rarely agree with him, but he used to be an intelligent and thoughtful commentator. Used to be.
Over the past few months, he’s fallen apart. His columns are now just long lists of insults directed against anyone or anything that doesn’t entirely agree with President Bush. And with his response to the attacks, he’s gone so low that I expect him to emerge in the Southern hemisphere any minute now. Check it out (bottom of the first page): http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/09/11/reacts/index.html
The first half of it is predicatble sentiments: America has gone soft, people hate us because we’re democratic and free, etc… Nothing harmful here, but such platitudes aren’t useful either. This sentence is remarkably stupid:
There is now way for anyone to have predicted where major terrorist attacks would occur. It’s not clear exactly what he’s suggesting. Nobody has done anything wrong by failing to install anti-aircraft guns on the WTC.
There will a time to discuss missile defense systems when this is over and we can approach it from a more rational standpoint. Right now, we’re on the brink of war. To use the occasion as a means of boosting any particualr spending scheme is just plain wrong.
More trying to use the emotions that people are feeling right now to override reason. Now suppose that after the Oklahoma City bombing, we had decided to use racial profiling. Then we would have risked letting Timothy McVeigh get away. Bad idea. The particular way that Horowitz phrases this appears to suggest that he thinks we should just throw the Constitution out.
And these would be which alliances? With which radicals? And I don’t suppose that it’s possible that anybody other those lefties has any alliances with anybody who is even remotely anti-American.
You do realize that he wrote that on Tuesday, right? It’s an easily understandable reaction, at the time. We all say things hastily that we later reget in times of stress.
I sure hope that they don’t start profiling after the Murrough(sp?) building bombing. 30something, plain, kinda goofy looking white guys such as my self would be in for it.
I haven’t read much Horowitz in a long time, but, like several posters here, he may have been writing with more emotion than clear thought in his head at that time. A lot of people have flown off the handle with the recent events. Let’s see what he says in a couple of weeks when everyone has a clearer head.
Robertson and Falwell on the other hand, are just idiots. If they are waiting for me in heaven, I’m not going.
I don’t buy this “clear head” bullshit. The man is a professional writer. He has been in the business for years, and knows exactly what he is doing. He has been an agent provocateur for months now, and this article fits right in with his current downslide.
Yes, David, we should spend billions of dollars on a missile defense system that can shoot our own planes out of the sky.
Wait a minute, didn’t we already spend the surplus on 300 million camcorders and CD players? Perhaps we can return them and send the money back to the government.
So David Horowitz is a middle aged white man with a extremist right wing idealogy who believes that America is being destroyed by a vast left wing conspiracy.
ITR I think you had a good post. I apologize for focusing on the one part I didn’t like.
Your example doesn’t make sense. Or, maybe you’re assuming that the profiling would be done senselessly. Of course, profiling would have been useless in Oklahoma City, but it could conceivably have saved thousands of lives at the WTC. Knowing now that all the people involved were Arabs, I would insist that profiling be used right now. I’m sure any group of Arabs boarding a plane will get special attention.
So, Hillary Clinton is a middle aged white person with an extremist left wing ideology who believes that
America is being destroyed by a vast right wing conspiracy.
Just like Timothy McVeigh did.
Hmmmm.
Seriously, David Horowitz spent half his life as a member of that left wing conspiracy. His opinion about it might well be accurate.
Maybe thirty years ago when he was still in touch with reality.
I keep meaning to write to Salon and tell them to get a real conservative commentator; one whose opinion I can respect. I normally come from the other side of the room, but I enjoy conservative pundits who challenge me.
I always suspect that the editors of Salon keep Horowitz around as a sort of institutional joke: their own pet caricature of a rabid conservative.
And by the way, Ann Coulter sucks ass, too. Writing about the people who danced in the streets, she said “we should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.”
Well, David Horowitz used to be worth reading, about 3-5 years ago. But he’s slowly becoming less and less lucid, and now sometimes borders on schizophrenia.
My biggest problem with Horowitz’s column is that he didn’t have an understanable emotional reaction to the event. He didn’t express any sympathy towards the victims or their families, any calls to American patriotism, or even any rage against the terrorists. All he did was immediately start trying to take swings at his political enemies. He acts like an automoton whose job is to use any event possible to lob insults at liberals.
