I thought I’d have the task of writing yet another defense of American Betrayal and its author, Diana West. Fortunately for me, Diana wrote her own material on this latest attack; I’m simply going to mirror it here since she’s the expert on that nightmare, though the Baron is a pretty close second.

They both worked so hard to beat back the smears, lies, and defamations. The cacophony descended into attacks on her character, just as though we were in a Soviet Communism reality. That’s what happens when your opponents come from the American Communist Party (CPUSA) milieu, even though they claim to have bleached out their spots. The Horowitz strategy vis-à-vis Diana West’s exposure of the USSR’s tunneling through America’s highest levels of government under FDR is akin to the campaign(s) and reign of Obama. Same tactics and strategy.

We never did figure out precisely who was the Big Goombah behind the whole onslaught… that failed blitzkrieg was the strangest thing I’d ever witnessed. The attacks on her book were from the Right, that is, from Conservatism, Inc. But as it was to turn out, this ugly episode was a prodromal event which would play out in full when Trump ran for President. Then they came out of the woodwork like termites.

The archives for Gates of Vienna’s Defense of Diana West are here. Be sure to read “Planet X” — you may want to present your own ideas in the comments as to what entity might have driven this concerted smear. Many of her attackers admitted they’d not read her book and didn’t intend to do so; as though they were leftists, those folk were content to pile on, proving the temptation toward tyranny lurks on both sides of the political divide. There will always be those willing to play kiss-the-derriere if the payoff is big enough.

Below is Diana’s posting on the latest resurrection of this old battle. [My comments are italicized, in square brackets. —D] Please go to her website to get the links, since I’ve omitted them here, except for the first one to the relevant section of her own archives.

What started this strange little eruption was an essay by Daniel Greenfield at Front Page. Greenfield, in his job as a Front Page writer, was tasked with serving notice about Ron Radosh’s self-excommunication from the Right due to his NeverTrump convictions. Radosh’s departure from the Right, returning to his leftist den after so many years of trying to carve himself into a conservative, showed how thin his new “conservative” veneer was. In the end, he is little more than the radical wolf he always was.

[Diana West begins by pointing to one of her collections from the past —D]

Desk Drawer 5: David Horowitz Has Another American Betrayal Meltdown

Desk Drawer 4 is here.

[That drawer #4 is chockablock full of David Horowitz’ lies and half-truths. Reminds one of Obama that way. —D]

Got an email the other night from a pal.

It was slugged: “Dear God in heaven, they’re doing a re-enactment of the American Betrayal attacks.”

Oh no, not again …

Turns out “they” are merely David Horowitz, who, some oldtimers will recall, led a disinformation campaign against American Betrayal from his Frontpage website. It began publicly with a “take-down” called “McCarthy on Steroids” by Ron Radosh in August of 2013, which appeared in the same week as a five-part—series based on American Betrayal ran at Breitbart News. The Horowitz-led disinformation campaign ended continues to this day.

[As all Americans, and many of our European readers know, the mention of “McCarthy” is supposed to serve as a signal that one’s opponent is deranged. Much of the material McCarthy uncovered about the American Communist Party — Radosh & Horowitz were members in their youth — turned out to be true. Unfortunately, he hit at those far more powerful than he, so McC had to be destroyed. In today’s political climate, as soon as someone says McCarthy’s name, you know they’re on paper-thin moral ice. That was true with the rabid Radosh’s attack against Diana West —D]

That first payload of disinformation was originally debunked at Breitbart News in three parts, which is also available as a book and Kindle here.

Four years later, however, the attacks are in miniature — a tiny fight Horowitz picked with a few readers in the comment section of a rather curious piece by Daniel Greenfield. The piece, which appears to ex-communicate Radosh from all things Horowitz, seems to be about the “ancient slur” of “McCarthyism” as it is now, evidently, being used by Radosh against “a growing list of conservatives from David Horowitz to Stephen Bannon to Rich Higgins to Stephen Miller to a fellow named Daniel Greenfield.”

Readers may be forgiven for assuming, logically, that Frontpage might also be taking Radosh to task for such “ancient slurs” against me and my work. As a great admirer of the late, great Joseph McCarthy, I, of course, take such “slurs” as supreme compliments, but still: lies and ad hominem attacks? Not so much.

Greenfield opens his McCarthyism/Radosh piece thus:

“McCarthyism accusations are the last refuge of old Commies. As a dog returns to its vomit, old lefties reach for the security blanket of that ancient slur which is used to tar anyone who questions the left.”

Mixed metaphors aside, the sick canine Frontpage has in mind is Ron Radosh, which might seem to be something, if you excuse the neo-Red “running dog of imperialism” prose. Alas, †he rest of the piece mainly bemoans and pities the “old Commie,” never again achieving that same dog-vomit piquancy. I suspect that’s because the whole thing is not particularly serious.

Still, some readers interpreted the article as a rationale for, or even possible stirrings of, a Horowitz Mea Culpa for Yours Truly. While that’s all very kind of them, and I do greatly appreciate their comments about my book, this is not in the cards of the kind of game Horowitz is playing.

Anyway, the whole affair, apparently calculated to smoke-signal some meaningful public rupture between faux populists (Horowitz) and herd-riding NeverTrumpers (Radosh) — perhaps as a way to atone for Horowitz having failed utterly for a year to help Bannon out with Radosh’s damaging, year-long “Leninist” attack when it might have mattered — completely backfired.

He just couldn’t help himself.

Behold.

NB: For reader convenience, I will mark the three statements David Horowitz makes that are probably or actually true (for more info, see, for example, The Rebuttal: Defending ‘American Betrayal’ from the Book-Burners).

Texas Patriot wrote: “… When is David Horowitz going to reach out and mend the fences with Diana West?…”

Horowitz : You’re forgetting. I offered her all the space in Frontpage she might need to reply to Radosh’s review and she denounced me as a “book burner”. Your appeal if it’s sincere needs to be made to this disturbed woman. I never intended Radosh’s review or my decision to remove Tapson’s review to start a war. [1: Probably true, especially since they lost.]

DonnieZen wrote: Unfortunately David Horowitz followed [Radosh], saying Diana’s book was “sloppy journalism”, even though the book contains 900 footnotes. What’s up with these Marxist converts?

Horowitz: Footnotes yes. Good judgment no. Read her chapter claiming that D-Day was a Soviet plot, which makes Eisenhower and the American general staff Communist dupes.

GingerLi wrote: There was nothing ‘sloppy’ about Diana’s book, and I was disappointed in Horowitz’s denigration of it. One thing it did: it spurred my interest in the subject so much so that its truth for me was more than confirmed. It’s a terrible accusation to make that traitors were actually running our government during WWII but one can’t escape that conclusion when allied countries and millions of people were sold out wholesale to Stalin’s communism to preserve the narrow political fortunes of high sounding windbags: FDR and Churchill. …

Horowitz: What West ignores is that by making Stalin an ally, we saved millions of American lives. Literally. You make not like this pact with the Devil but it doesn’t mean that the US gov’t was run by Soviet agents, which is what West claims.

DonnieZen wrote: Conrad Black also leveled charges at Diana because of “American Betrayal”. That’s hardly a surprise as Black is the Official Bowdlerizer of the FDR Myth. …

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