Horowitz Defends Coulter's Jewish Remark: It's All Donnie Deutsch's Fault
The following piece is published on Pop and Politics as well as OffTheBus.
Political polemicist-popculture entertainer Ann Coulter spoke at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School last week as part of a national "conservative campus protest" called Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. The Terrorism Awareness website, created by conservative political writer David Horowitz's Freedom Center, a major sponsor of the week's events, asserts that the aim of the protest was to "confront the two Big Lies of the political left: that George Bush created the war on terror and that Global Warming is a greater danger to Americans than the terrorist threat."
Horowitz has long opposed what he calls the leftist orthodoxy that rules American higher education, calling out professors who, he says, attempt to indoctrinate rather than inform. His book The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, went after in particular professors whose teachings on the Middle East called into question US support of Israel and/or seemed to support grievances against the US voiced by Islamic and Arabic organizations.
The Terrorism Awareness website offers Horowitz-inflected expansions on the reasoning behind last week's protest: "In the face of the greatest danger Americans have ever confronted, the academic left has mobilized to create sympathy for the enemy and to fight anyone who rallies Americans to defend themselves. According to the academic left, anyone who links Islamic radicalism to the war on terror is an 'Islamophobe.' According to the academic left, the Islamo-fascists hate us not because we are tolerant and free, but because we are 'oppressors.'"
Coulter's scheduled appearance has spurred protest and debate on campus and on the USC internets. Chris Nelson, a graduate student in the Annenberg School and a staff writer at P+P, decided to pose some basics directly (via the email) to Horowitz, who, we're happy to report, was eager to respond. Here's the transcript tidbits:
Chris Nelson: Why Coulter? What of value do you believe she adds to today's political and media climates?
David Horowitz: Ann Coulter is one of the sharpest satirical wits in our national culture and a courageous American. The goal of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is to begin discussion about the nature of the terrorist enemy and to raise awareness of the oppression of women in Islam, subjects which are either verboten at USC or swept under the rug. Ann Coulter is the solution to those two problems.
Why did the Freedom Foundation sponsor her event at USC? How much money did you contribute, if any, and is the foundation sponsoring any other of Ms. Coulter's engagements nationwide?
The Freedom Center asked Ann to appear at USC for the reasons above. Her speech is sponsored and underwritten by Young America's Foundation, as was her previous speech at Tulane.
What is your position on Ms. Coulter's recent remarks regarding the Jewish faith?
Those who have attacked Ann over her remarks about Christians being "perfected Jews" reflect the casual anti-Christian bigotry of contemporary liberalism. Jesus was very clear in saying that as a Jew he had come to correct, fulfill and, in effect, perfect the law of Moses. If you are a Christian that's what you believe. Why should anybody in America, whose democratic culture is based on the pluralism of ideas, be offended by a religious belief?
What is your definition of Islamo-Facism and why do you believe that Ms. Coulter is qualified to speak on it?
Islamo-fascism is a totalitarian ideology whose goal is a global lslamic state in which Islamic law will be imposed on every man, woman and child on penalty of death. As a warrior in the struggle to defend freedom against its enemies in Islam and on the political left, Ann is eminently qualified for this task.
Do you believe that Ms. Coulter makes "incendiary" remarks to the press for the purpose of promoting herself and in this case, her book?
If you read the interview which led to those remarks, you will see that this incident was entirely the creation of Donnie Deutsch, not Coulter, and as I have already said the reaction to her remarks is an expression of the religious bigotry of liberals.
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Wow, I loved that article. Particularly this line: "casual anti-Christian bigotry of contemporary liberalism". So dead on.
To me, progressives appear to be radicalized, brainwashed, and hate filled. Wound up and sent out to smear and shout down like Nazi brown shirts.
If they all expressed themselves as this man does, we might actually have an interchange of ideas and discussions rather than shouting matches which achieve nothing.
re: "Jesus was very clear in saying that as a Jew he had come to correct, fulfill and, in effect, perfect the law of Moses"
Oh yeah?...I'd like to see that passage. I seem to remember something about "fulfilling the prophecies"...there were no prophecies about correcting, fulfilling or perfecting the law of Moses" that I can recall.
Having Horowitz teaching Christian thought reminds me of Lewis Black discussing Evangelical Christians. As he says...the Old Testament is OUR book and you are misinterpreting it. If you need to understand a passage, just ask a Jew (shortened and simplified...but that's the context).
David, what exactly is the basis of your interpretation?
Horowitz and Coulter. One shudders to think that such people actually need to be taken note of in the twenty-first century. They are living proof that human progress has stalled. The mere existence of such creatures argues convincingly against the concept of intelligent design.
David Horowitz is to being a Jew
as
Larry Craig is to being a homosexual.
The idiots on the right, like Horowitz, who fight these rhetorical wars really think of themselves as "warriors." As he says: "As a warrior in the struggle to defend freedom against its enemies in Islam and the political left." Whatever he and Ann Coulter is selling, it bears little resemblance to freedom.
It is revealing of his mentality that Horowitz equates radical Islam with the political left." Perhaps radical Islam is not then, as he says: "The greatest threat Americans have ever confronted." Is he equating radical Islam with Nancy Pelosi and Code Pink and universal health care?
Also, these provocateurs on the right consider themselves warriors in their "nutty" rhetorical wars as a way to rationalize their non-military service to our country, as if their private "culture wars" are just as dangerous and their duty in them as patriotic. Next he'll want a Purple Heart for suffering some rhetorical barb. He and his minions are shameless!
Horowitz certainly has been a laughing stock for years! Why does this article come as a surprise to anyone, given his behavior and history? He gives a whole new dimension to the term "fundamentalist". Scary scary dude!
Am I the only one who thinks Horowitz's favorite song is The Inquisition from History of the World?
"As a warrior in the struggle to defend freedom against its enemies in Islam and on the political left...". Well, I guess we know how Mr. Horowitz feels about anybody who disagrees with him. This quote should be tatooed on every neocons ass.
". . . In the face of the greatest danger Americans have ever confronted'
WTF?
These people are insane.
I guess Mr. Horowitz has never heard of the first Battle of Bull Run. Or Valley Forge? He should have caught Ken Burns series on WW II and learned somethng about Iwo Jima or Gudalcanal.
If we could survive WW II, the Civil War I think we can handle Osama Bin Ladin and his crew of gangsters.
Islamofascism is an attempt to confuse Americans who are, for the most part, completely ignorant of anything to do with Islam. Kept that way by or media.
In the run up to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan I failed to see ONE SINGLE show which delved into the history, culture, religion, society, let alone politics of the countries we were going to war in.
Despite Iraq being, after all, the oldest civilization on earth. ( I know some scholars think Herat in Afghanistan is the oldest city)So there should be plenty of material out there.
As a result we hear these fools talking about Islamofascism.
What is this. A modern Crusade?
I despair of a country where these idiots are treated as anything other than the wack jobs they truly are.
"one of the sharpest satirical wits in our national culture"
"as a Jew he had come to correct, fulfill and, in effect, perfect the law of Moses"
So Horowitz wants it both ways. He wants us to believe she is a satirist, while he believes what she says. They, repugnants, are all the same, repugnant!
I don't think that Horowitz is a fascist but he is a fool. Just because someone is the enemy of my enemy doesn't me s/he is my friend. Coulter is a fraud as shown on other blogs on this site & the fact that she dated Andrew Stein, a New York Democratic politician.
This is an extraordinary piece Chris.
Horowitz immediately began revising Coulters statements into "Christians being "perfected Jews"' when in fact what she said was, Jews needed to become Christians inorder to be perfected, Horowitz has twisted her words and then blamed the left and liberals for being 'anti-Chrisitan bigots'. You have to have an extraordinary talent for twisting the facts in such an insidious manner as to confuse the truth entirely so beyond recognition that it leaves only confusion in its wake.
The academic world deals in historical context and facts which is what has so enraged the religious right, and by this I mean Zionists of both Jewish and Christian origin. This fanatical religious movement wants us to believe their religious texts and to use them as the basis for our foreign policy.
There is zero evidence of any kind that Al-Queda or any other 'terrorist group' has any interest in a global muslim world.
Bin Laden was very clear about why he attacked us on 9/11,
1.The destruction and suffering of iraqi people under war and sanctions imposed by the USA via the UN.
2.Demanded removal of American military bases in Saudi Arabia.
3.Demanded the end of Israels dominance and slaughter of Palestinians in their own lands.
Horowitz has two primary goals: create confusion and keep the focus AWAY from what these Zionists are actually doing to our country and to the world. They lie, they manufacture enemies and wars and they set up these pro-Israeli organizations with innocuous names like the American Enterprise Institute and out right false names like the Freedom Centre. Acadamia is under regular asault by network of well organized political organizationsl like: Campus Watch, Stand With Us, the David Project, the Israel on Campus Coalition, and the disingenuously named Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.
They're goal is the suppression of acadamic freedom, intellectual honesty and destruction of individuals who dare challenge America's foreign policy.
http://www.counterpunch.org/makdisi10182007.html
Horowitz is a Jew. I doubt he would be labeled as a Fascist. I'm all for freedom from religion. I don't feel that Jews or Christians are trying to force their religion on the world like Islamofascists. Looking at history Isalm has been trying to shove their religion on the world since the year 1000 A.D.
Horowitz is a fascist and doesn't even know it -- sure won't admit it. Talk about projection: "Why should anybody in America, whose democratic culture is based on the pluralism of ideas, be offended by a religious belief?" Wonder how he'd feel if a "Christofascism" week was held next week?
USC - University of Spoiled Children? Bush invented the GWOT and Global Warming was invented by the left. I get it! Now let's go paint Tommy Trojan and get drunk before my rich uncle makes me quit having fun and go to work at his hedge fund.
I love this "conservative campus protest." What are they protesting? Their silver spoons? I participated in the UCLA riots to protest the war in Vietnam. I remember meeting Jack Nicholson who wanted to "be part of it." I told him I was getting out before the police started to really bust heads. I knew they were ready for the protesters since we have a riot over the fact that USC went to the Rose Bowl instead of UCLA.
Ann Coulter is now and has always been irrelevant. Her "culture war" is a "vulture war." I'd like to see her speak at a University of California Campus. At least Nicholson is a great artist.
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