HOROWITZ GOES HAYWIRE – AGAIN
Witch-hunter answers Raimondo – whines about ‘character assassination’
Editorial note: We reprint below a letter posted on David Horowitz’s Frontpage site, Horowitz’s crazed answer, and Justin Raimondo’s rejoinder.
HOROWITZ EXPOSED
I used to think David Horowitz was the cat’s pajamas for taking on the Left, but now am having “second thoughts” on account of a very illuminating analysis here: "Horowitz Goes Haywire"
What say you?
– Emily Creo, New York, NY 12/6/01
Horowitz responds:
Raimondo is a deranged individual with a pathological obssession [sic] for me because of a conflict we had over Martin Luther King (whom he despises) almost ten years ago. According to Freedom House Qatar has “no human rights”. Al Jeezera [sic] TV daily incites 35 million Muslims to think of the United States as a mass murderer. Its rulers have as much integrity as the Saudi dynasty, which is also our “ally”. [University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Chancellor James] Moeser attacked me as despicable and shameful while he pretended to defend my free speech rights. He made no such critical judgment of his own professors for putting on [a] teach in to promote the idea that the United States deserved the World Trade Center attack. Why should I have been nice to him when I was there? I have read a couple of Raimondo’s attacks on me. People can have honest differences. I try answer those who do. Raimondo probably has such differences with me, but he prefers character assassination as a method of argument instead.
Justin Raimondo’s rejoinder:
Your nutty idea that I have an “obsession” with you, David, is laughable: is everything really all about you? I don’t think so. It really doesn’t behoove someone who is so vocal about his opinions to whine about how people are attacking him – when you are constantly on the attack yourself. Your idea that I “despise” Martin Luther King is typical of your hopped-up hyperbolic state: while I disagree with King’s ideas (as a libertarian, I oppose anti-discrimination laws) this hardly amounts to “despising” him.
Your curious obsession with Qatar – of all places! – is what is truly deranged. Here is a faithful US ally, which one would think would get your imprimatur on account of its cravenly pro-US foreign policy – and instead you are conducting a one-man “divestment” movement, in parodic imitation of your former comrades on the Left. Al Jazeera may not have a program of which you approve, but neither does its editorial policy coincide with that of the pro-US Qatari government – a point that underscores Qatar’s relatively free media. Nothing you have written supports the idea that Qatar is a “radical Islamic state,” as you put it.
Furthermore, your diatribe nowhere cites an actual reference to anyone saying that “the US deserved the WTC attack”: who said this at UNC-Chapel Hill, and when?
Finally, for you, of all people, to complain that I have engaged in a campaign of “character assassination” is disingenuous, to say the least. This from someone who screeches that I am “deranged” and, in an answer to another letter, claims that I am the reason for his having to travel with bodyguards! Look, David, don’t blame me if people hate you: you’ve made enough enemies on your own, without any help from me.
If you choose not to answer any polemics directed at you written by me, I suppose you have your reasons. But please quit the victimological whining: if you can’t stand the heat, then get out of the kitchen.
– Justin Raimondo, San Francisco, California, 12/06/01
