AMERICA wouldn't be America without someone like David Horowitz to take advantage of a horrible tragedy. He recently took out an ad in 16 college newspapers, The Cavalier Daily among them, urging anti-war protesters to "think twice" and not protest the reaction of our government to recent terrorist attacks.
But the tone is much more condescending than that. In fact, Horowitz goes so far as to blame the deaths from the Vietnam War on the anti-war protesters and claims that today's protestors are guilty of treason. However, we don't find any evidence to back up these claims. The only thing this advertisement proves is that Horowitz will do just about anything to get attention.
For those who don't remember, Horowitz is the conservative columnist who wrote an ad denouncing reparations for slavery as "racist," and claimed that blacks already had been paid back for years of slavery, racism and discrimination though welfare and affirmative action.
Much to Horowitz's chagrin, there is no giant outrage over his new ad. Despite its inflammatory language, all of the college newspapers have accepted his writing, either as an advertisement or an opinion column. And unfortunately for Mr. Horowitz, people are actually beginning to analyze what he said.
Horowitz doesn't pull any punches in accusing and stereotyping protestors. In an interview with The Daily Cal of the University of California-Berkeley, he says that his ad is targeted toward students who "hate America so much they are willing to weaken the country." In the ad itself, he accuses them of "attacking [their] own country," harboring "malevolent hate," and seeking to "sabotage ... the nation's defenses."
So how are protesters today committing treason and conspiring the overthrow of the American government? Horowitz offers no proof but just describes his experience as a former member of the far left during the Vietnam war. But that was 30 years ago, and there are few similarities between Vietnam and the conflict we're facing now: We're now facing a threat on American soil against a group of people, not a nation.
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Horowitz also purports that in the Vietnam era, "the tolerance of anti-American hatreds was so high, that the line between dissent and treason was eventually erased." With the outpouring of patriotism, no one would assert today that the country today is tolerant of "anti-American hatred."
Also worth noting is that Horowitz believes that his friend Betty Van Patter was murdered over 25 years ago by members of the Black Panthers, of which Horowitz was a one at the time (www.salon.com/news/col/horo/1999/12/13/betty/index.htm). This obviously raises doubts as to how objective Horowitz could be in discussing the far left. The murderous acts of a few radicals do not speak for an entire movement, but for Horowitz, they do.
The evidence and objectivity with which Horowitz accuses protestors of "treason" is shaky at best. In examining his motives, it's easy to see that Horowitz has one goal: attention.
No matter what the issue, Horowitz always finds some way to bring the attention back to himself. June 25, almost four months after he submitted his ad on reparations, Horowitz wrote a salon.com column on the admittance of gays into the military. Never one for modesty, Horowitz spent the first four paragraphs of the column reminding readers of the advertising campaign he waged on college newspapers. Just a reminder, Mr. Horowitz, your ad was on slavery reparations, not gay rights.
In his 683-word "letter" to anti-war protestors, Horowitz talks about himself for over a third of it. Not to mention the laughable yet shameless plug for Horowitz's autobiography that he included in the advertisement.
Horowitz simply is taking advantage of the terrorist attacks in order to gain attention. With countless columnists across the country writing on the same topic, Horowitz's views on the tragedy weren't as unique, and therefore didn't draw as much attention.
But Horowitz derives his strategy from public opinion. He picks an issue where most Americans agree with him - according to Time magazine polls, 75 percent of Americans are against reparations, and 84 percent support Bush's response to the attacks. Like last March, Horowitz found attention by asserting a non-controversial opinion in a controversial way.
For the most part, I agree with Horowitz on most issues. I believe that slavery reparations aren't appropriate, and I support overreaction, rather than underreaction, in response to the recent terrorist attacks. But his obvious play for publicity, especially after such a tragedy, is nothing short of depraved.
During the uproar over his reparations ad, Horowitz wrote that he "couldn't be more pleased with the attention." Sorry, Mr. Horowitz, but your 15 minutes of fame are up. By trying to milk more publicity out of the recent tragedy, all you're doing now is exposing your incessant need for attention.
(Brian Cook is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. He can be reached at bcook@cavalierdaily.com.)
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