Churchill vs. Horowitz vs. Humanity
Superman vs. Muhammad Ali it ain't.
Indeed, the much-ballyhooed brouhaha between ersatz Indian Ward "Little Eichmann" Churchill and diminutive former Marxist turned GOP shill David "Left-wing nut turned right-wing nut" Horowitz on Hannity & Colmes doesn't even rise to the theatrics of Dracula vs. Frankenstein, even as the contest robs the audience of any rooting interest (other than for immediate thermonuclear disaster). Indeed, this sort of contest reminds me of the Bonnie Frankin vs. Linda Lavin dream fight a friend of mine cooked up once in the late '70s when asked to imagine a fight-to-the-death in which the audience would be rooting for both participants to lose in the first round.
But here's a partial transcript, for future use in Gitmo on detainees. And go here for video.
A while ago (2003), Reason's Jesse Walker argued convincingly that Horowitz's jihad for an "academic bill of rights" was more likely to "chill speech than to encourage it." Read all about it here. And check out Horo's reply and Jesse's backatcha here.
Ward Churchill plagiarism charges here.
Say what you will about Frankenstein, he was one monster who looked good in a sportscoat.
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Boy, would somebody please tear out Hannity’s larynx? What a yutz that guy is. Churchill’s “I can’t hear you” schtick is actually funny there.
HOROWITZ: What I have criticized is peace studies programs, which are not studies about the causes of war and peace, but which are indoctrination programs in a left-wing agenda, that the United States is an imperialist aggressor, that the military is responsible for wars instead of preventing wars . . .
Uh, that last part is absolutely correct, you moron. The State Department is responsible for preventing wars. The military is responsible for fighting them.
Actually Churchill pretty much pwned Hannity throughout that whole exchange! And I don’t even LIKE Churchill!
HANNITY: Ward Churchill, I don’t even care that you’re controversial. But I want to bring this point to you and give you a chance to respond. If you have a soul, if you really care about humanity the way you say you do, then you would retract and you would apologize for referring to the victims, quote, “inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the Twin Towers, as little Eichmanns.” Do you have a soul? Will you apologize for what you said about those people that lost their lives on 9/11?
CHURCHILL: Well, first of all, Sean, I’ll take care of my own soul. I don’t need your assistance in that particular matter. And I absolutely…
HANNITY: Apparently, you do, actually.
Jeebus. What a terrible human being Hannity is. I mean, actually evil.
CU’s kinda fucked up. They continue to employ an unqualified, dishonest pseudo-academic who lied on his application, and then:
In a February 2004 opinion piece in the Daily Camera in Boulder, he [Nobel Prize-winning physicist Carl Wieman] described the university as “an academic appendage to the football program.”, so he leaves for the University of British Columbia.
CU grad here. Both Ward Churchill and Carl Wieman can go piss up a rope. Though the latter is certainly more worthy of praise based strictly on his academic career than the former, who is worthy of no praise at all for anything.
many universities appear to me to be academic appendages for their football programs
somehow major league baseball manages to have minor league teams from which to train players for the major leagues but the NFL is incapable of this? the universities have to do it for them?
I’m proud to say that I got my Ph.D. from a large university with no football program.
The university did, however, win 4 Nobel prizes during my time there. And I even got to take a class from one of the laureates.
I got my bachelor’s degree from a place with a good football team. I never saw any football players in my quantum physics courses.
One reason to think Horowitz is a big hypocrite is that he has no apparent problem with the blatant, institutionalized bias that occurs on the dozens of religious “colleges” around the US. They even make their faculty sign loyalty oaths to certain ideas and fire them if they dare cross them in their intellectual journeys. But hey, they mostly vote GOP so they get a pass. What a hypocrite!
This seems like a good time to point out the profound difference in cool between FIRE and FrontPageMag.
Ken, religious colleges that demand loyalty to certain principles don’t bother me much. It isn’t the way I’d run any private school that went insane and made me its chancellor, but they are well within their rights. What gruntles me is the numerous tax-sucking state institutions with crabbed views of what is proper to discuss on campus.
Wouldn’t it be grand if some of the phlanthropy generated by our “free market” system went towards funding a great, secular private university, independent of government funding and control, and not beholden to the mavens of P.C., left, right or center?
Kevin
…doesn’t even rise to the theatrics of Dracula vs. Frankenstein…
Yeah, but what about Abbott and Costello vs. Dracula and Frankenstein…
Say what you will about Frankenstein, he was one monster who looked good in a sportscoat.
I’m confused cuz the pic just shows Frankie’s face.
…Oh yeah, of course he always did wear that coat. I’m hep now. Oleg Cassini wasn’t it?
One reason to think Horowitz is a big hypocrite is that he has no apparent problem with the blatant, institutionalized bias that occurs on the dozens of religious “colleges” around the US.
Yeaaaaaaaaaaaah, um, religious schools are private. State schools are, well, I needn’t continue.
TPG:
Yes, but part of the point is that Horowitz likes to take his show to private colleges that he deems too lefty, while giving right-biased schools a pass.
He came to my undergraduate institution (Augustana College, a small private Lutheran college in South Dakota) to speak a few years ago, and announced that Republicans were as rare as unicorns on that campus. One member of the Poli Sci department (which at the time was made up of nothing but Independents and Republicans) riposted that he wasn’t sure where the school was keeping the unicorn herd, because 35% of the faculty were registered members of the GOP, and the faculty also had a considerable number of Independents and Libertarians. While it didn’t shut Horowitz up, it certainly showed that he was barking up the wrong tree.
many universities appear to me to be academic appendages for their football programs
I went to Florida State for my BS. FSU would be an academic appendage to its football program, but at some point, the was an appendectomy…
FSU’s appendix was removed?
SmokingPenguin, remind me to abuse you come football season. I, of course, am one of the Florida graduates in these parts.
Incidentally, I note that Reason has been strangely silent about NCAA basketball since UCLA lost to those vulgar, nonlibertarian Gators. Where’s the love for good basketball? Is this a California thing?
Now what’s basketball? Oh yeah, that game where the ball is often bounced on the floor prior to aiming it at a suspended rim. Except when the opposing team is found guilty of an infraction in the court, in which case the bouncing is not required to move the ball prior to aiming it at the suspended rim…
…I’d rather watch bad football than great basketball, if there is such a thing…
What ever, it’s just not my thing. And also I’m just kinda teasing, Pro Libertate. I usually dig what you write and your screen name is splendid,
Bonnie Frankin vs. Linda Lavin dream fight
I’d have to put my money on Bonnie Franklin. Lavin was as annoying as a bad smell in your fridge but I think Bonnie Franklin was on some kind of eternal PMS hormone freakout, she’d just go beserker on a wannabe-human like Lavin.
biologist: or its larynx, I forget which. I took a class in anatomy at FSU, so I know those things are right next to each other.
Pro Libertate: ha ha! Go right ahead. I don’t care about college football at all. I lived within a mile of Doak Campbell 2 out of the 4 years I lived in Tallahassee, and never went to a game. My UF cousin tried to give me grief one time when the Gators pounded FSU, only to find out that 1) I was unaware the game had happened, and 2) I didn’t care. A couple years later, I asked him how the game had gone that year only to see him wince, as apparently FSU had done much, much better. I didn’t care then, either.
FWIW, I think Bowden (like many football coaches) is a sleazebag, and UF is a far better school academically than FSU in most departments. However, when I went to FSU, the F/M ratio was something like 6/4.
Phil — Wow, really no one comes out looking good here, do they?
I mean, Churchill’s original comment is pretty despicable, but accusing someone of not having a soul? WTF? That’s not even something I’d say to my worst personal enemies. Well, I wouldn’t say it on national television, at least. Well, maybe I would. But not to someone I didn’t know who said something despicable. That’s just silly.
CU grad here.
My daughter’s attending CU right now; I didn’t mean to knock the school as much as to bitch about them raising tuition while wasting money on crap like Churchill and bogus “rape” lawsuits associated with the football team*.
The only Nobel physics prof I ever had was truly incompetent as a professor/teacher, but “Nobel” is a good academic advertisement, and it’s probably better to have more of ’em rather than fewer.
*Disclaimer: I don’t give a rat’s ass about any football teams. Supposedly they bring in donation money, but other than that they’re just silly.
I mean, Churchill’s original comment is pretty despicable, but accusing someone of not having a soul?
I think Churchill’s probably a bit of a sociopath, which is the secular way of saying “no soul.”