Professor smacks down psycho Horowitz's lies....

[marmar]

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Bloomsburg, PA--David Horowitz, the former wacky-left editor of Ramparts magazine turned wacky right smear-monger and foundation pimp, came to Bloomsburg University in rural central Pennsylvania to pick up a $7000 check and spout lies and misinformation in a debate with local college philosophy professor Kurt Smith.


Horowitz never strayed more than 30 feet from his well coiffed bodyguard (the smartly dressed goon even hung out on the stage of the auditorium within view of the audience throughout the debate, perhaps fearing that Smith might charge from his lectern to make a point physically, or that unruly student radicals might rush the stage). Horowitz must have called ahead to local police, warning of an imagined plot against him, too, since he was also accompanied everywhere by three members of the uniformed local constabulary.


The debate was decidedly one-sided, with Horowitz offering one misstatement of fact after another, and Smith batting them down with the dispatch of a seasoned squash player.


At the start of the debate, Smith explained to the assembled audience of mostly Bloomsburg U. students that Horowitz, during the several years since the American invasion of Iraq, has been following the lead of the right-wing American Council of Trustees and Alumni, attacking academia for alleged left-wing bias. Under the leadership of disgraced Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman and Dick Cheney consort Lynn Cheney, ACTA since 9-11 has been hounding liberal academics, accusing them of being disloyal—indeed of being the only segment of American society to be "unpatriotic."


Smith explained that in Pennsylvania, where the Republican-led legislature last spring impaneled a committee to investigate alleged liberal bias on state college campuses, Horowitz had come and testified, citing alleged cases of student abuse--all of which proved to be bogus. Smith then declared that Horowitz's proposed "Academic Bill of Rights" (ABoR), which in some versions would give students the right to sue their professors for allegedly political grading or for speaking outside of their formal field of study, was nothing but "politics pure and simple--it's about seeking a place for right-wing propaganda" in the university.

The rest is at: http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/

[donco6]

1. This is well worth reading, thanks.

Sounds like Horowitz is finally losing steam. Like all the other conservative whackos, the lies only last so long.

[marmar]

2. You bet...and very true, they're lying about their lies at this point...

:nopity:

[donco6]

3. About time someone handed Horowitz his ass.

He tried pulling that shit here in Colorado, too. Thankfully, our legislature shifted to Dem in the midst of his propaganda tour.

Though Ward Churchill continues to be his poster boy.

[Erika]

4. Horowitz rode the tide of the rabid right wingers

He's got as much credibility as Coultergeist. They all need to sneak back under their rocks.

[marmar]

9. True. He is kind a male Ann Coulter....

:scared:

[Fovea]

11. I thought there already was a male Ann Coulter...

His name is Ann Coulter.

[JHB]

12. I'm sure he's been presented with his ass many a time...

...but each time it's just one person in one place, whereas he can always find another audience somewhere (you can do that when you don't have to work for a living).

[Supersedeas]

14. I'll second that and recommend it too!!

[LostInAnomie]

5. When I was in college I used to love it when my professors...

... would take on blowhards. RWers should know that it is never a good idea to take on a person whose job it is to know their shit.

[marmar]

6. Yup. My PoliSci profs were the best. Unapologetically liberal....

and more than willing to make apes out of the few knuckle-dragger Repugs in class brave enough to challenge them.

[Yupster]

7. I went to college in the 70's

and every Poli Sci professor in my small college was a communist. The only argument was Maoist versus Trotskyite. Leninist versus Stalinist.

They were pretty tough on disenting voices and I graduated as a communist as I think we all did. It didn't last a year though after I got my first job as a newspaper reporter.

We had one student in our department (history) who was a drummer in a rock band and he used to challenge one professor. She was a Maoist and she used to get very animated and slap him down hard. He had good fun with it though.

Looking back, it wasn't a healthy atmosphere for learning. We were all pretty much indoctrinated and thought that every highly educated person in the world came down on the Marxist side. And it seemed right back in the Seventies where countries were turning to communist governments all over the world.

I wonder if any of those professors are still there today, and if they are still spouting the communist line.

[marmar]

8. I wonder. Just being "liberal" is today's equivalent of a communist!

:hurts:

[Coexist]

10. THE BEST PART!!!

<snip>
"Smith won boisterous applause for insisting that university classrooms are not public spaces where all speakers have equal rights. In the classroom, he asserted, there is a natural asymmetry, as a consequence of the professor's "experience and credentials." In a dig that caused Horowitz to visibly stiffen, Smith said, "You only have a master’s degree in English, have never sat on a hiring committee, and never taught, and yet you are expressing expertise about higher education." He concluded, turning to the audience, "Mr. Horowitz should follow his own advice about professors sticking to their subject areas. Since he has no experience in higher education, he should not offer to solve higher education’s problems. He's feigning to be an academic."



:spray: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[marmar]

13. I know. That's great.

I would have paid money to see the look on that asshole's face.

[ThomCat]

15. That sounds like a very thorough smackdown!

:rofl:

I love the rebuke about him only having a Masters Degree in English, so by his own argument he shouldn't be preaching in an area where he has no expertise.