That the ever-platitudinous Jack E. White has called David Horowitz a "bigot"
is, of course, stupid and unprofessional but hardly surprising to the weary
Time readers who, like hikers confronted with a bog, must rapidly skirt
White's flatulent prose whenever it appears.
But that Time's editors allowed the sophomoric libel to pass raises questions
about the magazine's process of internal review: Was this simply a
late-summer slip-up (in which case Time will promptly admit it), or is there a
double standard for PC propagandists like White?
I respect the astute and rigorously unsentimental David Horowitz as one of
America's most original and courageous political analysts. He has the true
1960s spirit -- audacious and irreverent, yet passionately engaged and committed
to social change.
Although we are both columnists for Salon, I do not know Horowitz -- aside from
when I was interviewed on his radio show in California eight years ago. But
I regard him as an important contemporary thinker who is determined to
shatter partisan stereotypes and to defy censorship wherever it
occurs -- notably, in this case, in the area of discourse on race, which is
befogged with sanctimony and hypocrisy.
As a scholar who regularly surveys archival material, I think that, a century
from now, cultural historians will find David Horowitz's spiritual and
political odyssey paradigmatic for our time.
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