American Betrayed, Part 1

My blogging abilities are hampered by my lack of access to my customary computer. Not only is this screen way too small for comfort — I have to break every five or ten minutes to get away from it for a while — but my regular computer is all but directly linked to my brain via special neuronal connections. I feel as though I’m missing a limb while writing this.

As a result, the following overview of the controversy over Diana West’s book American Betrayal will be a rambling account of what happened, with some speculative thoughts about the possible reasons for these strange and distressing events. Dymphna and I have been tossing ideas back and forth for the past six weeks, trying to make sense of what happened.

Rather than fill in all the background, I invite readers who are unfamiliar with the “take-down” of American Betrayal to visit the Diana West Archives.

Ms. West’s book was published last spring to favorable reviews in a number of conservative outlets, and the author was interviewed on television about its controversial topic: the extent of the penetration of the United States government by Soviet agents of influence before, during, and after World War Two.

Controversy is one thing — arguments about Ms. West’s conclusions and speculative deductions are to be expected — but personal attacks on her capabilities as a writer and researcher are another matter entirely.

In early August a favorable review of American Betrayal was published at Front Page Magazine’s website, and then quickly pulled by the editor, David Horowitz. It was replaced some days later by a 7,000-word attack written by Ronald Radosh, who went beyond criticizing the book on the merits and descended into name-calling and personal insults. His piece was followed almost immediately by several vitriolic pieces by David Horowitz himself (also at Front Page), additional attacks by Mr. Radosh in other venues, and a particularly snide hit-piece by Conrad Black at NRO.

The sentiments of Messrs. Radosh, Horowitz, and Black were echoed in short order by several satellite writers at smaller sites, who amazingly enough, had not read the book, and were not loath to admit that fact. As far as I am aware, no one who denounced the book had actually read it, with the exception of the Denouncer-in-Chief, Ronald Radosh.

And even he may not have read the book in its entirety, since he misattributed several arguments to it that it did not make, and “corrected” those errors with new misattributions. One is forced to conclude that he either deliberately misrepresented the truth, had not actually read the whole book, or had some sort of mental lapse, perhaps a sudden fit of absent-mindedness.

From then on, prominent defenders of Diana West were few.

Andrew Bostom has spoken up on her behalf, as have Stacy McCain, M. Stanton Evans, David Solway, Clare Lopez, Frank Gaffney, Edward Cline, and a few others. Overwhelming support for the book and its author may be found on many smaller blogs, in forums, and in the comments on various websites. FPM itself has been deluged with angry commenters decrying the treatment of Diana West.

But no conservative pundit of major stature — not a single one — has written an article or op-ed protesting the ad-hominem attacks on Ms. West (an “unhinged” “conspiracy theorist” who has not been “house-trained”).

Their silence speaks volumes.

First of all, it suggests that they are afraid of the power wielded by Mr. Horowitz, and intend to make sure they don’t end up as her next-door neighbor in the Outer Darkness.

Secondly, it indicates a lack of agreement with Messrs. Radosh, Horowitz, and Black. The leading pundits were almost certainly requested to join the Two-Minute Hate against Diana West. If so, with the exception of Conrad Black, all of them declined.

The capstone to the whole sorry farrago came when Clare Lopez was fired as a Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute. In an article published at Gatestone, Ms. Lopez had referred to American Betrayal in a favorable manner when citing parallels between Soviet penetration of our government in the 1940s and the penetration by the Muslim Brotherhood today. Like the favorable review at FPM, Ms. Lopez’ article was immediately pulled from the Gatestone site, but not before it had been sent out to Gatestone’s email subscriber list and published elsewhere. The following day Ms. Lopez was summarily fired with no explanation.

This tells us that there is more at work than meets the eye, and that considerable money must be at stake, since Gatestone would not have engaged in such blatantly dishonorable behavior without good reason — at least not in public.

Since then there has been a Silence of the Lambs among the Lions of Conservatism. The silence has been tentatively (and only lightly) broken in recent days by Mark Krikorian, Brad Thor, Newt Gingrich, and Ann Coulter, who Tweeted about M. Stanton Evans’ article summarizing what happened and supporting Diana West.

Perhaps this is the beginning of something more. However — and it may be curmudgeonly of me to say so — it seems too little, too late.

That’s all my eyes can take for tonight, and I have many other things I must do. Part 2 will consider the possible explanations for this unexpectedly sordid behavior on the part of people who should know better.

For links to previous articles about the controversy over American Betrayal, see the Diana West Archives.

52 thoughts on “American Betrayed, Part 1

  1. Isn’t Conrad Black a convicted felon? What’s he doing flinging dung at ethical, moral people? I know he is chums with fellow Canajun Mark Steyn, whom I respect.

  2. If we assume that Conrad Black’s imprisonment was ‘engineered’ by person or persons unknown, then it is not a huge leap of logic to guess that the same occultic figures are behind this affair. These figures must be very happy with the current status quo, and feel a need to defend it from something in the book.

    As it is, the book would only have been read by a tiny proportion of US society, and these shenannigans may have increased sales rather than reduced them.
    there are tro possibilities here, first is that the book contains something they dislike, secondly, Ms. West herself is something they dislike. Or both of the above of course.

    Seems to me that the critics are overwhelmingly male! but I am not happy that this is provocation enough.

    The other curiosity is the sheer clumsiness of the action, the pulling of a good review and its replacement with a half-baked hostile review shows signs of panic….

  3. Hi, I’m glad you made the point about the silence of major pundits indicating disagreement with Horowitz and Radosh. This is what I gleaned very early on, shortly after Radosh promised that there was an upcoming series of “scholars” who were all going to chime in. When the sparse posse of detractors were forthcoming the omissions were mysterious. Not much of a lynching, when only a few klanners can be bothered to show. Others showed a strange lack of enthusiasm for the affair. As you say, they don’t feel it wise to join in the fray on either side. This may well indicate discomfort with West’s book, and that is of course their prerogative. But it is an even clearer indicator that they cannot endorse the Radosh/Horowitz attack (and, sadly, we have to include Glazov in this, though he has been less public in his contribution). This has gone horribly wrong for the FPM folks, and they should have been negotiating an exit strategy ages ago. It is disappointing that they seem so blind to their own moral collapse.

  4. The strategy employed by Horowitz and Radosh here is of course, beneath contempt. The question is why would they want to attack this book. M. Stanton Evans has written before now about the extent of infiltration by Soviet agents of influence in American politics. So that’s hardly news.

    There’s an interesting parallel here: Look at how Michele Bachman was treated when she raised the question of MB influence in the White House today.

    And we all recall how Sarah Palin was treated when she unexpectedly rose to prominence in American political life.

    • The interesting thing about the demonization of Bachman is that she was one of five Congressmen who sent those letters of inquiry to the Inspectors General. But the Big Boys (especially John McCain, who thundered over in the Senate) picked Bachman out of the herd as the one to receive special treatment..

      The woman whose security clearance she questioned, Huma Weiner, has just finished her Hillary Clintonesque 21st century version of “Stand By Your Man” as her ‘man’ campaigned for Mayor of NYC. You could see the faithful wife counting the minutes until that torture was over . When it mercifully ended, Huma fled back to Hillary’s camp with such alacrity one wonders if she stopped to pick her toothbrush.

  5. I would like to hear from Roger Bolton (Chairman of Gatestone Institute)and Andrew McCarthy whose opinions are usually worth consideration.

    And Mark Steyn has so far opted out: strange considering that there is little else that has escaped his attention in the wars of the words.

    Btw, almost all the detractors seem to be Jewish. Is there something in the sum total of West’s work that detracts against the Jewish diaspora? The facts of communism in the 20th Century are something that they have surely faced up to by now? Perhaps Horowitz thinks raking over the coals of of covert communist infiltration reveals too many smouldering embers of the roots of communism? What I have read so far of West’s book seems replete with well sourced facts. The opinions of course are hers, but they do not seem outlandish and the comparisons with the modus operandi of the Muslim Brotherhood seem perfectly valid to me.

    • Why hasn’t the book ‘200 Years Together’ by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn been translated in English ?
      It appears to be radioactive… There is a German and a French translation, I think.
      Very interesting indeed.

    • Jewish donors and Jewish literati are the backbone of the neoconservative movement. And dissing American presidents and questioning the probity of America’s international policies and actions are simply not in the neocon dictionary.

      • You haven’t been reading much on the neocon blogs or foundation sites. There is lots of dissing of Obama. And George Bush came in for some too, especially when he was literally holding hands with the Saudis.

        My memory isn’t great, but I do remember those. Check out the Weakly Standard, a neocon bastion.

  6. “How is it that liberals keep getting tripped up by the Alger Hiss Soviet spy case over 75 years after it happened? MSNBC host Karen Finney raised eyebrows yesterday when she hung up on conservative talk-show host Hugh Hewitt after she turned down several chances he offered to acknowledge that the late Alger Hiss was a Communist. He barely got to the point of discussing if Hiss was a spy for the Soviet Union.”

    These are hot button issues, right enough!

    • There’s so much ignorance among liberals and leftists about Communist infiltration that Finney probably didn’t know whether or not Alger Hiss was a communist. But she and just about every other liberal/leftist will know about the terrible Joe McCarthy and speak pejoratively about “mcarthysim.” Thus her reaction.

      This is what the takeover of academe by the liberals/leftists has done to us.

  7. The whole topic goes back 70 years or longer and has many roots. Miss West has it
    exactly right and could be inadvertently coming closer to other old phases of the Communist renaming. Many years ago I was impressed by a real anti- communist
    who cautioned against believing that showing up the failure of the Soviet system was
    the answer to victory over this tyranny. “Lenin and Stalin were just the wrong guys to run
    our paradise. Chalk them off as expendable, change our name, be patient, and come at our goal from another direction” It’s just a thought.

  8. Would have thought freethinking folks do not need authoritative reading lists from conservative central.

  9. The main fault of Radosh is his repeated and copious mischaracterizations of Diana West’s book. Everyone may commit errors like this occasionally; but Radosh did it so many times and and his discrepancies were so glaringly egregious, it cannot be explained other than through two explanations:

    1) his brain is seriously physically damaged;

    or

    2) he deliberately distorted multiple times in order to deceive and foment obfuscation.

    Numerous times documented scrupulously by West, Radosh did this. It was as though West had written:

    “The sky was blue that day, Tuesday May 19th, 1876, although there were many clouds in the Western part of the horizon as the sun was going down; and Custer was reported to have said that he saw no Indians at all, until the next morning, and was confirmed in this by his scout, a Lakota brave.” (page 282-283)

    And Radosh argued:

    “Ms. West makes the wild claim, unsupported by any historian, that on Thursday, June 27th 1877, the sky was clear, when everyone knows it was cloudy and torrential rains began to pour before nightfall. And furthermore, West is so preposterously out of her depth not to know that June 27th 1877 was a full year after Custer’s infamous “Last Stand”. She gets everything wrong: Custer did not have any Cheyenne scouts in his army or in any capacity, so when she says he had a Cheyenne scout, she must be demented or perhaps is remembering her kindergarten lessons in crayon. Furthermore, West claims this Cheyenne scout was a female lesbian, but every scholar knows that scouts were never females, much less lesbians. Finally, in this little passage she claims that Custer wore a monocle and had black hair and was a follower of Castro, when every historian worth his salt knows that Custer’s real name was Murray Finkelstein, had red hair, and was blind in the second of his three eyes, and furthermore lived a full century after Castro. West can’t get anything right.”

    I only slightly exaggerate the bizarre and surreal mischaracterizations Radosh repeatedly and serially indulged in like a madman — or like a deceiver intentionally fomenting obfuscation in in the interest of disfinformation and demonic Alinskyite confusion.

    • Other than your mild satire and slight exaggeration, this very much matches my impression of Radosh’s review, and doubling-down, and even some of the better minds who piled on after he did, who apparently had read only the review, and not the book.

  10. How does John Loftus'(and co-author) books relate to all this? I know they (published in the ’90) may seem somewhat dated, but they aggressively describe and document soviet infiltration of, especially, the Western intelligence services. Even the West’s efforts to stem the tide of soviet domination of Eastern Europe was, according to Loftus, directed from Moscow. Soveit “occupation” was that much.

    Could someone review his research in relation to Ms. West’s book.

    Can assume a few will not appreciate Loftus’ support – for that particular reason. You know why . . .

    • Could someone review his research in relation to Ms. West’s book.

      That sounds like an excellent idea! And since you thought of it, why not do that very thing for all of us?

      Or, you could look up Pundita on our sidebar and see if she has any information. She is/was a real John Loftus fan. I tried to tune into his radio program in NYC a few years ago, but our connection then wouldn’t let it through.

  11. So glad to see Gaffney’s name on that list of defenders. It really does seem to require nerves of steel to stand up for the book. Which is one of the main points of the book isn’t it? To cite her Orwell quote from p101 (how apt!):~
    “History ended in 1936… I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various ‘party lines'”. Either one makes a friend of the truth, however unpalatable, or one embraces a comforting delusion to the eventual detriment of all.

    This whole area of Communism and its infiltration of the West has been an unknown to me – I really needed a book like this and I have to see its been the most gripping thing I’ve read in years. It explains so much of contemporary attitudes and the most surprising matters, to me, are those about which there seems no or little controversy! Why haven’t I known this stuff before? Why isn’t everyone aware of this? Just as I reacted when I began to discover Islam.

    The book is a revelation and I’m so grateful for GoV bringing it to my attention.

  12. I think my last comment may have been too indirect and unclear. Let me make my point more starkly. In order to grasp just how egregious were Radosh’s mischaracterizations of Diana West’s book, I will create a hypothetical imaginative review.

    First, let us imagine Diana West wrote the following:

    “1. A boy climbed up a hill.
    2. The boy’s name was Jack.
    3. A girl also climbed up the same hill.
    4. The girl’s name was Jill.
    5. They fetched a pail of water from the top of the hill.
    6. Jack fell down and broke his crown.
    7. Jill came tumbling after.”

    Then Radosh reviewed this and wrote:

    “Diana West makes the wildly irresponsible claim that three boys came down a mountain. And she only exacerbates this lie by the wild-eyed assertion that one of the boy’s names was ‘Stephen’. Then she shows her lack of elementary comprehension by repeating the fable that ten girls drifted by in a dirigible. West cannot get anything right — she makes the outrageous claim that all ten girls were named ‘Rhonda’. She evidently never attended college, for she never would have asserted, as she does, that ‘Stephen’ became a wealthy king and lived happily ever after; nor that ‘Rhonda’ turned into a dragon and gobbled up the other nine girls. West really needs to leave these matters to more qualified experts like my colleagues who agree with me.”

    Or perhaps I can even be clearer. Let us say West wrote the following:

    “The sky is blue. Up is not down. Roast chicken may have been George Washington’s favorite food.”

    About these lines by West, Radosh would have written the following review:

    “Diana West makes the shocking claim that the sky is orange. She also goes out on a limb to say that up is in fact down. And finally, she has the termerity to flout all established historiographical convention and assert with absolute certainty that Ben Franklin was not a vegetarian.”

    Or better yet:

    West:

    “Up.
    Black.
    Apple.
    Gold.”

    Radosh:

    “West claims Down, White, Banana, Silver.”

  13. What I think is strange is that neither Radosh nor Horowitz have responded on this thread, particularly to Hesperado’s posts.
    The letters behind one’s name do not contain one’s intent. Authority informs writing, but intent drives the decisions made about what to refer to and what to ignore, and that’s particularly true in these “academics turned polemicists.”

    • It’s not strange at all, Goethe…Horowitz respond to the microbes on Gates of Vienna??? Bwahahaha! Sriusly! Do you talk to the insects in your garden??

      Perhaps his behavior confused you because in one of his early Rage Fits he stomped over here and dropped a comment bomb about Diana West’s purported crimes. But the rage is spent now and he has no reason to return. He was never in a conversation here, he was merely in attack mode. Veni, vinci, etc.

      Mr. Horowitz is a bizzy bizzy man, tasked as he is with saving Western civilization and meeting with influential people…which you and I and Hesperado are not. The Freedom Centered on David Horowitz needs three or four things from other people. See if you or Hesperado fit any of these categories:

      (1) If you’re famous he needs some of your reflected manna to shine onto the David Horowitz Freedom Center (never trust anyone who names an organization after himself) so that rich people who are dazzled by fame will want to fund his projects – e.g., paying the salaries of Robert Spencer and Jamie Glazov. etc. Not to mention his own modest material needs.

      (2) If you’re very wealthy, then you are useful because you can pass significant amounts of money his way, enabling him to perform good deeds which will increase freedom. For example, his Restoration weekend (week? I’m not sure) has been shown to materially increase freedom and liberty to…well, onto whomever he bestows it.

      (3) if you’re a Nobody, you can still serve. Hand over your widow’s mite, or perhaps serve as fodder in the comments section on his website so that his Rilly Wealthy Funders can see how the little people are enthusiastically engaged in the Freedom Centered on David Horowitz. The RWFs will then be impressed with his reach down into the lower realms and give him more money for this Important Work.

      Seriously, besides the writers he features, another valuable project DH created is “Discover the Networks” . The linkages among the Leftist groups are dissected, connected, and revealed. When I was just beginning to find my way around the fever swamps, I spent quite a bit of time at DTN educating myself about the webs among these folks. Like others, I found DTN invaluable. Just the dissection done on George Soros-funded groups constitutes a genuine service in helping to understand how profoundly Soros affects what goes on in the US. Or how about the swamps where dwells the Tides Foundation, Theresa Heinz Kerry’s organization? Before the DHFC did that research I don’t think there was anything like it: comprehensive, encyclopedic and invaluable information about radical Marxist coonections in this country, groups whose goals include making us into a third world soviet.

      Unfortunately, DH has gone ’round the bend, entering into his own fever swamps; what he has done there is icky. Not only has he devalued his own work (DTN), but he seems oblivious to the effect his use of Alinsky’s Rule #12 in his relentless campaign to denigrate Diana West’s work has boomeranged back to damage his integrity.

      Setting up a separate page in DTN, his Leftis mt encyclopedia, to attack Diana West makes him appear pathetic at best. It’s downright creepy.
      ———————————————-
      DISCOVER THE NETWORKS.ORG
      A Guide to the Political Left
      ———————————————
      Diana West vs Front Page

      Goethe, you speak as though David Horowitz were rational about any of this; he’s not. That page is proof positive that he’s lost in his own delusions. As a matter of fact, his one-time appearance here on GoV is another indication of the slippage.

      Actually, when he comment-bombed here the first time, I had strong reservations about letting that piece through. If I had it to do over again, I’d have talked the Baron into trashing it. You don’t help a crazy person build his own case against himself. I knew he hadn’t submitted a comment in good faith, and I knew he didn’t belong here. Just as I regret not deleting Robert Spencer when he came by, thinking he was exposing the Baron by calling him Ned. Neither of them belong here and their actions have proved it.

      This is not about sane dialogue, or the give and take of normal conversation. This is about one man’s unfortunate derangement. We need to let it be just in case insanity is contagious. At any rate, there’s not much more to be said that adds any light to the subject. It looks like the time has arrived to let it go.

  14. I want to expand a little upon what is so distressing to me about Horowitz’s behavior. He did good work (for example) in organizing a day during which anti-Islam speakers spoke in college and university venues across the country. I think this has occurred more than once–I haven’t kept track

    I attended the speech at UC Berkeley which was given by Nonie Darwash who spoke about the horrors of Islam and Shariah. Unlike many experts, she is able to speak about her own, personal experience; this makes her presentation more compelling.

    About one third of the audience were there to disrupt the proceedings and, one by one, they either were removed from the audience or left of their own accord.

    When they were gone, the audience was able to focus upon the speech and, at the end, she received an ovation from the audience. And this on the UC Berkeley campus!

    Other speakers were presenting on the same topic on this same day in colleges and universities across the country.

    This is good work, important work. Which makes Horowitz’s current irrational stance regarding Diana West all the more distressing to me.

    • When you want to infiltrate in order to subvert a complex powerful system, sometimes you need to do it from the inside, through pretending you are part of that system’s defense. Even if there may be many forces assailing that system, that doesn’t necessarily remove the need for specialized deep-cover infiltration. Sometimes a system is so complex and powerful, the enemy realizes they need to pull out all the stops and leave no stone unturned.

      Thus, while we have the modern West assailed by a dominant PC MC culture, the enemies of the West would not necessarily rest on their laurels and say, “Okay, we can relax now, it looks like we’ll be able to take over the West now.” No; if they were rational, they would see that the achievement of the dominance of PC MC throughout the West, while definitely an encouraging trend, does not mean the job is over and they can relax. Much more needs to be done, because the West remains standing unconquered, even though it may be riddled with the fissures and cracks of a deep corrosion of its virtues and values.

      In this context, the coup de grace will likely only be delivered through an ultra-stealth operation of the deepest cover of all: the patient infiltration, over a long period of time — even decades — of various individuals who pretend to be defenders of the West and who in that capacity pretend to be against PC MC and against Leftism. I.e., only by having double agents within the very forces that are defending the West’s traditional values will the infiltration and the sabotage have a chance (at least in the minds of the enemy) of being truly successful.

      And the role par excellence of the double agent in this regard would include, precisely, the activities of being

      1) ostensibly anti-Communist

      and

      2) ostensibly anti-Islam.

      That, to me, is the best way to explain the surreal behaviors of Horowitz and Radosh with regard to the meticulously documented inferences about Communist infiltration which Diana West has brought to light; for just as Nature abhors a vacuum, so too do sociopolitical phenomena abhor the surreal.

      • I know this thread is a bit old, but I found something quite interesting this morning over at The American Spectator: http://spectator.org/blog/2013/09/25/how-ted-cruz-had-me-but-then-l.

        Mr. Goldstein is, apparently, unable to forgive Ted Cruz for the sin of hyperbole when, during his epic speech, he mentioned the British appeaser Neville Chamberlin and the Nazis.

        A commenter, SoCalGal, at Lucianne.com found this about Mr. Goldstein: “Aaron Goldstein began his political life as a socialist. But following the attacks of September 11, 2001, he gradually embraced the wisdom of conservatism. He uses his poetic license (which has been suspended on numerous occasions) to write about politics, music, clam chowder and anything else he darn well pleases. Born in Canada, Aaron has lived in Boston for over a decade.”

  15. I don’t think my last comment posted so I will repeat it.

    I want to expand upon a previous comment. Any knowledgeable presentation about Islam will, of course, expose the horrors of Islam. Horowitz organized a series of such talks, given by knowledgeable speakers and taking place at colleges and universities across the country, on the same day. (This may have happened more than once–I haven’t tracked it).

    I heard Nonie Darwish speak on the UC Berkeley campus as part of this series. About one third of the audience were there to disrupt the proceedings and they were physically removed from the auditorium, one by one, or left of their own accord. Eventually, when the auditorium was quiet, the audience could focus on the speech. Ms. Darwish has a working knowledge of Islam and could speak from her own experience which is always compelling. At the end, she received an ovation from the audience. And this on the UC Berkeley campus!

    Organizing events such as these is good and important work. Which makes Horowitz’s current irrational, dishonest behavior regarding Diana West all the more disturbing and distressing.

    • Horowitz needs to submit himself to an extended symposium where he comes clean and answers questions with full candor until the wee hours of the night. If he doesn’t do that, but opts to stay in his powerful comfort zone and continue to take pot shots, then he should be considered “not one of us” — i.e., ejected from the “Big Tent”.

      • I doubt that any one of us has the power to eject anyone.

        And, aside from the current nastiness and craziness, few of us have done as much for the counterjihad as Horowitz. Whether any one of us likes it or not.

        • I have no problem with Horowitz’ power and up until now, no problems with how he used it for the most part.

          The powerful do tend toward hubris. The only one I know who didn’t let it go to his head was Breitbart, but then I’ve been told AB didn’t care for DH – who knows? Both men were powerful, both were respected. But Breitbart was beloved, and that’s the difference.

          Horowitz’ behavior for a while was alarming. The fact that he came onto the comment section of our small blog and squatted here to extrude some nastiness was…the best I can say about it was that it was highly inappropriate. That was right around the time he was being pestered by all sorts of small folk on Twitter who were taking him to task for his bullying.

          And he did definitely bully and project. Acted for all the world like a member of the Norwegian MSM 😉 As I have said before, when one of his Twitter followers screen capped the image of that special page DH had created on his excellent project “Discover the Networks”, a project devoted to exposing the networks on the Left with a full page devoted to Diana West?? It was bizarre.

          His defense for putting that page up? Diana West had attacked HIM so he had to respond.

          Crazy behavior diminished on-going respect – Horowitz spent a lot of his perceived integrity in this slam and the echoing silence of the Bigs – i.e., their refusal to back up his attacks on her – demonstrate that erosion of his perceived character.

          Just because he’s done a great deal for the Counterjihad doesn’t give him carte blanche to use the tactics of personal destruction he employed in this situation. It wasn’t a one-off, but a sustained siege. And it was brutal and shameful.

          As I said, he’s powerful…and that power grants him respect. But he’ll never be beloved like Breitbart was. Nor would Breitbart have ever shot inside the tent like Horowitz did, repeatedly.

          Two sure signs DH is losing it: relentless bullying and obvious projection onto others of one’s character failings.

          • Yes, it was brutal and shameful. Particularly the initial and follow-up articles by Radosh. And then Horowitz defended the attacks, added to them, and irrationally insisted that Diana West had offered no defense, when we could all see that she went to the trouble of offering a meticulous defense. I was so sorry to see that her response obviously had to take so much of her time and energy to prepare.

            So I agree, Horowitz’s behavior was very bad and very bullying. And there is no excuse for it.

            I’m trying to reconcile this bad behavior, maliciousness and irrationality with what I had seen previously of the good work he has done. Obviously there is some missing information here.

        • Being unable to eject someone is a separate matter from the principle that establishes tje fitness or unfitness of that someone in that regard. Why confuse the two matters?

          • No confusion. You appeared to couple them or else imply that you or we had the power to eject anyone from the “tent.” Not even Horowitz has that power thank goodness.

          • No confusion. You seem to couple the two or else imply that you or we have the power to eject anyone from the “tent.” Not even Horowitz has that power, thank goodness.

            We need everyone we can get in the counterjihad tent. Even if they are not conservatives. Even if they are liberals. And even, I dare say, if they have shown themselves to be malicious and bullying when their someone treads on their corns, so to speak.

            Our situation is too dire to turn away any aid, even if we had the power to do so.

      • P.S. I should have said the “current nasty, egregious, irrational and unacceptable” behavior.

        • If Horowitz and Radosh are merely being irrationally irascible and egotistical, I agree they should not be ejected from the Big Tent (again, “should” is a separate issue from whether we can).

          So you assume Horowitz and Radosh are not crypto-Communist stealth agents. If you changed your mind and agreed they are in fact that, would you still want them in the Big Tent?

          Secondly, my principle for accepting or rejecting anyone as being in the Big Tent concerns a show of willingness to have mature dialogue with those who are concerned. Thus, given the severe concerns we should have about Horowitz and Radosh, they owe us a responsive participation in a dialogue-cum-inquisition so that we can sort this out in a rational manner. If they continue to refuse to accord us that basic due, they have shown they disrespect the Big Tent egregiously, and it is they who eject themselves. It is only for us to recognize what they have done to us.

  16. I imagine Horowitz and Radosh are licking their wounds. Be prepared for Round Three.

    • Or else they just hope the storm will die down. Hard to say.

      I’m sure that any liberals/leftists who are aware of it consider it to be a tempest in the conservative teapot and enjoy watching the “right wing” fighting among themselves.

  17. As far as Horowitz is concerned, the late Lawrence Auster described him as “deeply incoherent,” for starters.
    Visit: http://www.amnation.com/vfr

    Scroll down to the search field on the right side of the page and enter David Horowitz to read the several articles, written over a period of a decade, related to DH.

    This entry,
    http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/003402.html,

    I found to be quite interesting in revealing how much of a “good” liberal Mr. Horowitz actually is — sharing many of the ideas with which progressives are so enamored: equality, tolerance, inclusiveness, etc, leading me to surmise that something of the Marxist still clings to him. Here’s the meat of Auster’s analysis:

    “Even though liberalism is very different from leftism, and is often at war with leftism, it starts from the same spiritual basis as leftism: the denial (or at least the downgrading and thinning out) of transcendence and of particularity, the attempt to base society on abstract ideas and procedures (tolerance, inclusion, equality) rather than on the substance of a culture, namely transcendent reality as transmitted through a particular historical tradition.”

    Note also that L. Auster was once himself the target of DH’s shameful behavior:
    http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/007752.html

  18. I suspect that we will have to include even liberals in the counterjihad tent if we are to avert a Shariah takeover. I hope that their behavior will be better than that of Horowitz.

    • I really must disagree with that. It is only because of liberals that there is any danger to the West from Islam in the first place, it would be much less inaccurate (but still far from the mark) to claim that we should make common cause with the proponents of Shariah to reverse the Fabian Socialist agenda.

      • It’s not beyond the bounds of reason that some liberals will come to their senses regarding Islam. I would not reject their help even if their ideology led to the problem.

        For one thing, their coming to grips with their denial about the horrors of Shariah may make some inroads in their political outlook. I actually know one of these people.

        • Statistically, it is safer to bet on Muslims to assist in the fight against Shariah and other forms of Koranic authority, and those that do join the Counter-Jihad are likely to be more reliable allies thereafter.

          • To what statistics do you refer? Your subjective impressions, perhaps?

            Statistically there are many more unthinking but well-meaning liberals in this country than potential Muslim allies.

  19. I am extremely disappointed in David Horowitz scurrilous attack on Diana West.
    If he took the time to read American Betrayal he would realize that her
    conclusions are not only correct but that she spent an enormous amount of
    time and effort researching in order to ensure that they are. It is obvious that
    Ms. West did not seek to prove an idea that she had formulated. One need only to
    understand the depth of the POW-MIA issue to realize the extent of treachery and injustice on the part of our leaders. Ms. West took each of those instances for the last
    8 decades where our leaders behaved with questionable loyalty and was able to link
    them together in an extremely credible and enlightening narrative. It is up to us
    to somehow avenge the injustices to many who have suffered. However, for starters, I shall have to forgo future contributions to The Freedom Center until Mr. Horowitz realizes that he is terribly mistaken.
    John Molloy
    Chairman
    National Vietnam & Gulf War Veterans Coalition

    • Good for you. I appreciate your comments and your work.

      I hope that you have informed or will inform Horowitz about the reason for your decision to not support FPM.

  20. Pingback: American Betrayed, Part 2: Planet X | Gates of Vienna

  21. Pingback: Another fine reason why I have such an issue with the so-called “Jewish Right” | The Americanist

  22. Pingback: DIANA WEST BETRAYED PART 2 | RUTHFULLY YOURS

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