As revealed by Sheldon Rampton & John Stauber in Banana Republicans, at the outset of the 2000 campaign Tom Delay provided every Congressional Republican with a copy of David Horowitz's Art of Political War, each bearing a Karl Rove endorsement on the cover.

In it, Horowitz, a former 1960s Marxist who has since become an unapologetic screed for the hard right, invoked Lenin's maxim: "Politics is war conducted by other means," Horowitz proclaims. "In political war you do not fight just to prevail, but to destroy the enemies' fighting ability...In political wars, the aggressor usually prevails."

Horowitz approached this interaction as if it entailed a "political war" but with someone as knowledgeable as Brad Friedman, Horowitz's aggression was analogous to the guy who brings a knife to a gun fight.

What Ernie said.

Well, if they can't talk over you, they duck out quick. Seems to be a virus of the RWNM.

After 2000, Dems were surprised to find that the Republicans had been using, in old age homes, the procedure Horowitz described, since the late 1960s, along with a number of other standard dirty practices. My guess is that Horowitz simply took the long-standing Republican procedure for old age homes, and changed the nouns to generate this tale.

Brad v Right Wingers? Bet on Friedman every time!

"...many of whose mental capacities are even more limited than his mine..."

This Hotairowitz is the kook that didn't even use the gate before jumping the fence from Marxist to Stalinist.

To be fair to David Horowitz (besides all the crazy shit he said) his jumping off point--someone was taking advantage of his brother-in-law--was never really addressed. It was a bit of a clusterfuck in there what with the bad audio, the wide-ranging unsubstantiated GOP talking points, and the volatility of Horowitz but if you take away all the crazy shit(and you'd probably need a couple of front loaders to do that)what may have been a simple human concern sorta got plowed under.

I'm probably dreaming (and possibly being too much of a perfectionist) but I wonder in a case like this if the full-out crazy might have been avoided by a little acknowledgment of the part of the story that might have been deserving of some sympathy. You know, find the little millimeter of common ground and then deconstruct.

I used to be a big fan of David Horowitz. Decades ago his book "The Free World Colossus" had a huge impact on my way of looking at the world and the U.S. Sort of a Zinn effect before I became acquainted with Zinn. I was very curious when he underwent his radical shift of politics. I struggled through his long explanation of that transformation in a later book. I found it pretty incoherent.

Something bad happened to that guy. It seems he became sorta tortured and very angry. Or maybe he was always that way, even when I agreed with his politics.

David Lasagna -

I took his claims about what happened to his brother-in-law on their face. If he, or anybody else offered such a serious claim, I'd ask what facility it was and have they reported this serious crime, etc. That's exactly what I did with him.

The fact that he was unable or uninterested in responding --- was so hostile, in fact, to such questions --- suggestions that maybe, just maybe, something else is going on. The fact is, those similar stories (usually, it's an elderly family member being told how to vote by the caretakers in the supposed nursing home, or having their ballots voted for them, etc.) are told all the time by folks on the right. Just like the "busing in XXXXX voters from YYYYY". Yet there never seems to be any hard evidence offered to support the stories.

Nonetheless, I took his allegation seriously, and that's why I was asking for details so it could be investigated and/or reported.

His response, however, may have been very telling. That's up to you and others to determine.

I'm with you Brad. I wish I lived there(L.A.). This conversation I started, which you were so gracious to continue, I fear is a little too nuanced to take place through the ethers of email. Too much chance for misunderstanding. Not worth it. And as per usual, I thought you were great on that show.

Rightwing media & radio shows exist so they can just "say shit" without evidence, unchallenged by anyone. Like calling in radio shows and saying they saw someone on food stamps buying lobster.

ps Brad @8--

I was not aware that his story may have been just a variety of standard issue from the vast underground storage facilities at Bullshit Mountain.

So I hadn't considered that his whole narrative might be fictitious. Thanks for pointing out that possibility. I'm still a little naive.

Even after all the bullshit.

Kinda stupid. Kinda endearing.

faithfully yours,
Dave

Re David Lasagna @ various and Brad @8.

There is no reason why claims made by Horowitz or anyone else should be accepted "at face value." The devil is always in the details.

In pressing Horowitz for the facts, Brad did no more than he has often done with me in editing one of my articles, or, for that matter, in editing one of his own. The standard is objective journalism based on verifiable facts.

Horowitz's hysterical reaction to a simple request for the evidence to verify his care facility claim typifies what one might expect from a right wing smear merchant who operates in a fact free environment like the Glenn Beck show depicted in the above photo.

Dear Ernie,

I agree with what you(and Brad)are saying. At the same time, I was coming at the radio exchange from a slightly different angle. My initial comments(and as you know I used to do this a lot here)were an attempt to get at the psychology of the guy(Horowitz) and perhaps where his tripping point into cuckoo world might have been in the context of that particular conversation. He, like many Foxers, seems to me unusually angry, volatile, and unaware that he is unusually and inappropriately angry and volatile.

So while I agree with what you and Brad are saying, it's not quite getting at what I was trying to bring up. To really do this(if anybody 'sides me was inclined to) I think we'd have to be in the same room listening to the audio and stopping it frequently and deconstructing what was happening on an interpersonal level. I thought maybe I heard some things on an interpersonal communication level that might have been contributing to Horowitz losing it so weirdly. But even if either of you WAS interested in such a pursuit, there's a continent between us.

That guy used to have a really good brain. Really insightful. Something happened to him.

You know, I've read history. I'm old enough to have seen a North American Maoist in the wild, and I remember the '60s when the New Left was underway. Some of those people were noble, and they tended to live difficult lives. The best of them were splendid and noble; the worst were mad in the way that Lenin and Stalin were mad, Darkness-at-Noon, glinting eyeglasses crazy. But most were harmless cranks. Now David has switched sides. But he's still crazy, and still in the same way he was in his Marxist days.

Jim H @ 14,

Okay, maybe he is. I didn't know him before and I don't know him now. But he used to write coherently and back up his points with reason, logic, footnotes and research. That seems to have changed.

I liked David Horowitz so much better when he was a consumer advocate.

WOW!

Whenever you can bring somebody down with words; that's what it's all about!

You humiliated this guy. I almost feel bad for him. Almost.