Front Page Ragged ...
There are all kinds of reasons that one wouldn't attempt a dialogue with Horowitz. Take, for example, what passes for feedback at FrontPageRag. It is the most disgusting mishmash of verbal abuse I've seen anywhere on the net. Most of it has nothing to do with the conversation between Burke and Horowitz. It certainly speaks volumes about FrontPageRag's audience. Beyond that, there's the evidence that guests at FrontPageRag are intolerably abused. Earlier this week, Michael Berube was featured there. His substantial responses to questions were edited out and, then, Horowitz had the chutzpah to berate Berube for not responding to questions! Only after Berube made a big issue of it did the folk at FrontPageRag locate and publish the responses in a second part of the interview. In fact, there wasn't supposed to be a second part of the interview. It was only there because Berube had called Horowitz and his managing editor, Jaime Glazov, out for their deceit. That underscores a third reservation I'd have about appearing in dialogue with David Horowitz at FrontPageRag. It is his turf. He sets the ground rules and he always gets the last word.
But one of the things that I like about Tim Burke is his capacity to surprise me -- even though I've been reading his work at Easily Distracted for the last two years and have blogged with him here at Cliopatria for the last 16 months. I was surprised, for example, when on 2 February Burke's"Off the Hook" gave us a very early warning signal about the troubled waters in the Ward Churchill affair. Just when I was gearing up for a spirited defense of Churchill's"free speech" rights, Burke told us that it might not be as simple as that. Go read it and remember how early in the controversy it appeared. My"free speech" reaction was a decent, but ignorant, instinct. Burke knew what he was writing about.
Yet, in this dialogue, Tim agreed to a discussion with someone who would"network" him with someone like Churchill in a New York minute (hey, they're both Leftist anti-Americans, aren't they?), if he thought he could get away with it. It surprises me that Burke agreed to do the dialogue. You can read the result here. I've read enough of Burke's work to recognize the style of his argument in what is reported. At some point, he may want to comment, either at Easily Distracted or Cliopatria about his experience with Horowitz, but I'd just like to point out one issue in what appears over there.
Even when Tim and I disagree with each other, as we have from time to time, there are two qualities about him that hold my deepest respect. One is that he is one of the smartest human beings I know; and the other is that he is a gentleman to the core. He might not use that word about himself. It's a little old fashioned, but then I'm a little old fashioned, so I use it. Tim would prefer to talk about modeling"how we should all behave within an idealized democratic public sphere" or something like that. So, he's invited to offer his critique of Horowitz's DiscoverTheNetwork and he does. Immediately, Horowitz dismisses it as"a series of insults" – and that clears the way for him to respond with a series of insults, including reference to Burke's"ignorance." As I've said, Burke has held my respect for as long as I've known him because he's a gentleman and one of the smartest people I know.
Horowitz could not be more exactly wrong. But, then, we already knew that, didn't we? It's time for other conscientious conservatives, like myself, to repudiate everything that David Horowitz represents in our democratic public sphere. The truth is that there isn't a decent conservative instinct in his whole being. He was a gun-slinger for the Left as a young man who decided there was more money to be made as a gun-slinger for the Right in his seniority. There's nothing conservative about that.