Gay Today: People

The Mini-Jihads of David Horowitz

Potshots from a Professional Provocateur

By Bill Berkowitz

"So many enemies, so little time" could be the tag line for the work of David Horowitz, former sixties lefty turned conservative provocateur. These days he's no longer hawking anti-reparations advertisements to college newspapers. Instead, he's become a multitasking master of bashing dissent.

Haven't been following Horowitz lately? Here's a scorecard of current activities.

David Horowitz

Horowitz's denunciations of what he terms the "so-called Peace Movement" landed him on Dr. Laura's doorstep. He spent three hours with Dr. Laura Schlessinger on her Wednesday, October 24, syndicated radio program as part of the "National Call to SUPPORT the WAR."

Horowitz told Dr. Laura, his newly found "comrade-in-arms," that "campus leftists hate America more than the terrorists." The reason for this, said Horowitz, is campus radicals view "The enemy of my enemy is my friend. They are thrilled that the symbols of America were destroyed."

Like the guest who came to dinner and refused to go home, Horowitz's newly launched the "Think Twice" campaign is casting its shadow over a string of college campuses. "Think Twice," a name seemingly derived from his "Second Thoughts" project of the 1980s, is a no-holds-barred advertising effort aimed at convincing students on college campuses not to join in protests against Bush's war on terrorism.

Headlined "An Open Letter to the "Anti-War" Demonstrators: Think Twice Before You Bring The War Home," Horowitz urges students to "think again and not to join an 'anti-war' effort against America's coming battle with international terrorism."

Horowitz who appears to regret just about everything he did prior to becoming the darling of the Right, confesses to "cross[ing] the line between dissent and actual treason," during the Vietnam War. In an effort to save today's students from yesterday's mistakes, Horowitz maintains that "… there is a difference between honest dissent and malevolent hate, between criticism of national policy, and sabotage of the nation's defenses.

"If I have one regret from my radical years, it is that this country was too tolerant towards the treason of its enemies within. If patriotic Americans had been more vigilant in the defense of their country, if they had called things by their right names, if they had confronted us with the seriousness of our attacks, they might have caught the attention of those of us who were well-meaning but utterly misguided. And they might have stopped us in our tracks."

Related Stories from the GayToday Archive:
Kenneth W. Starr: Investigating Private Sexual Behavior

Camille Paglia: Bigotry's Trojan Horse

Moonie Tunes: The Rev. Moon is Back

Related Sites:
Media Transparency: David Horowitz

FrontPage Magazine

GayToday does not endorse related sites.

And he offers this bit of advice: "This appeal is for those of you who are out there today attacking your country, full of your own self-righteousness, but who one day might also live to regret what you have done."

Since ads are short-lived, the campaign has added the "airdrop" of Horowitz's pamphlets to its arsenal. "Flood the Campuses with Our Pamphlets! The latest 'airdrop' at the University of Wisconsin at Madison brings to 50,000 the number of 'Think Twice' pamphlets circulating on 45 U.S. campuses. To help us print another 50,000 and reach another 50 campuses, please send your donation today. A mere $100 buys 1000 pamphlets; $25 buys 250 pamphlets; $1000 will buy 10,000 pamphlets."

Then there's his attack on Representative Barbara Lee, the lone vote to deny President Bush a blank check for his war against terrorism. In a column called "The Enemy Within," Horowitz branded Lee an "anti-American communist who supports America's enemies and has actively collaborated with them in their war against America." This column is currently featured on the Audie Bock Congress 2002 web site, the online campaign headquarters for former California State Assemblywoman Audie Bock who is challenging Lee in the March 5th Democratic primary.

Chomping on Chomsky

His crusade against Noam Chomsky, the MIT professor of linguistics and a longtime U.S. foreign policy critic, is vintage venal Horowitz. In a late-September column titled "The Sick Mind of Noam Chomsky," posted at his regular slot on Salon.com, Horowitz wrote "Without question, the most devious, the most dishonest and -- in this hour of his nation's grave crisis - the most treacherous intellect in America belongs to MIT professor Noam Chomsky."

In late October, he pressed the attack on Chomsky in "The World's Most Shameless Liar Unloads Some More." Here, Horowitz is responding to a question posed to Chomsky by S. Barnable.

Barnable: "Are you upset or shocked by Horowitz's extraordinary attack on you [a column entitled 'The Sick Mind of Noam Chomsky' in which he describes Chomsky as a 'pathological'… 'ayatollah of anti-American hate']?"

Chomsky: "I haven't read Horowitz. I didn't used to read him when he was a Stalinist and I don't read him today. Haven't seen it."

Noam Chomsky

An obviously insulted Horowitz fires back: "Chomsky just lets go a load of lies in the most contrivedly casual fashion he can muster-as if being identified as a sick hater of himself and his country should have no impact on a superior being."

Horowitz offers this psychological profile of Chomsky, no doubt gleaned from hangin' with Dr. Laura: "It is my guess that Chomsky's mental disorder emanates from a pathological hatred of his American and Jewish identities. He is incapable of reasoned discussion, even with critical friends."

Since his political conversion, Horowitz has been dropping cluster bombs of rhetorical vitriol on whomever he perceives as his enemies. And on occasion, when the fire is returned, he resorts to whining. So here he is, on the one hand getting all puffed up and indignant, complaining about Prof. Chomsky calling him a "Stalinist" and then he turns right around and calls Chomsky the "Ayatollah of anti-American hate."

Horowitz's then lines up Jamie Glazov, who holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in Soviet Studies and "writes the Dr. Progressive advice column for angst-ridden leftists" at EnterStageRight.com, to defend him on Frontpage. Horowitz claims that he has distributed more than 50,000 copies of "The Sick Mind of Noam Chomsky" to some 20 campuses. He intends to print a new pamphlet, to be called "The Ayatollah of Anti-American Hate," which will be distributed "at MIT, Harvard, Amherst and other Chomsky infection sites."

And, keep this in mind, whenever and wherever Horowitz vents you'll usually find African-Americans thrown into the mix. On his Frontpage web site he labels the Congressional Black Caucus a "fifth-column," calls Rep. Lee an "anti-American communist" and dubs Rep. Cynthia McKinney "Hanoi Jane."

Rep. Barbara Lee

In a lovely box with a bright yellow background, Frontpage trumpets a collection of articles under the heading, "The Congressional Black Caucus's Fifth-Column Problem." Included are articles titled "The Black Caucus's War on Counter-Terrorism"; "Rep. Cynthia McKinney Must Go"; "Rep. Barbara Lee: The Enemy Within"; and "Cynthia McKinney: Today's Hanoi Jane."

I've gone over this ground before, but it's worth remembering who's paying the piper. Horowitz's first post-conversion project, which he co-directed with Peter Collier, was called "Second Thoughts."

Between January 1986 and January 1990, this project raised $950,000. As president of the Los Angeles-based Center for the Study of Popular Culture, he has profited even more handsomely.

According to mediatranparency.org, between 1989 and 2000, Horowitz's operations received 78 grants worth more than $9,400,000. Right-wing philanthropic partners include the Allegheny Foundation, Castle Rock Foundation (the Coors Family), the Bradley Foundation, the Scaife Family Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Olin Foundation (for more on Horowitz's financial pipeline, see http://www.mediatransparency.org/people/david_horowitz.htm

There's no question that things in America have changed dramatically since September 11. And I'm quite certain that the political landscape will undergo wide-ranging changes in the months ahead. That's why there's something eerily comforting about David Horowitz's mini-Jihads. Maybe it just comes down to the sense that the more things change the more some things remain the same. With that in mind, Horowitz's ranting and raving provides a safe harbor amidst the uncertainty and chaos.

Bill Berkowitz is an Oakland-based freelance writer covering the Religious Right and related conservative movements.