War to the Knife, Knife to the Hilt

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David Horowitz on Saturday fired back at Diana West in the seemingly interminable war over West’s book American Betrayal.

What I can’t understand is why this back-and-forth has to continue.

This began, you will recall, when Horowitz published Ron Radosh’s attack on Diana’s book, an attack that would seem a continuation of the general line of argument Radosh began against M. Stanton Evans’ Blacklisted by History in 2007. Whatever Radosh’s motives, this has rapidly escalated into a war of annihilation. It is no longer just an argument about a book, but rather a demand that everyone in the conservative movement must choose one side of the argument and cast into outer darkness everyone on the other side.

Really? With everything we might otherwise be doing — hey, Virginia will elect a governor in a couple of months — we should set that aside so that we can take up cudgels to bash in the skulls of whichever side we find fault with in an argument over the extent of Soviet influence in the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt?

Damn. Just . . . damn.

You know matters have degenerated to an intense state of craziness when I’m the last rational adult in the room.

 

 

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52 comments

  1. You’re not alone.

    I’m slightly frantic. I’ve not finished Diana West’s book – I spend all my time reading for my job, and there simply is a limit – but I abominate this particular style of attack. I have admired Ron Radosh for years, as much as anything else because his book about the Rosenbergs helped sustain my first, tentative, steps away from the leftism of San Francisco State University; I cannot say I care much for Horowitz (he’s just a dull writer by my lights), and I don’t have any particular opinion about Diana West.

    However, I cannot believe I am being asked to choose a side when (so far as the excerpts and the chapters I have read), the points of divergence are not strong enough to sustain this attack.

    I do not understand. I do not wish to enter into a war.

  2. The logic here seems to be that Horowitz/Radosh feel they have set up a fief of authority on the topic, and West cannot be permitted to exist without tacitly confessing that they’ve beat around the bush these decades.

  3. However, Radosh has not beat about the bush. He’s been a solid presenter of the Venona transcripts since they were declassified; he’s been very clear about the extent of BOTH communist infiltration and (what he regards and discusses) the extraordinarily serious issue of sympathizers.

    Look, I know I cannot win, here. It’s not as if I’m not seriously conversant with the evidence. My problem is, I have not finished West’s book, and (forgive me!) she’s not a compelling writer, so I keep setting her book aside. So far, it seems to me that she takes the evidence further than it warrants. This is not to say she’s wrong. Nor is it to say that Radosh’s response is justified, because it’s not. He’s jumping up and down in hobnails, when all that’s required is a polite dissent, with citations.

    I do not understand Radosh. It may be simply that West is (though I’m not sure of that, yet) riding the evidence past its endurance. It may be that he’s pathologically defending his own positions. Or, and this seems realistic, he may think that he’s being attacked for being cautious with the evidence simply because he’s always been open about his heritage. I simply cannot know, as I’m not in his head, nor in his world.

    If the book were better reading (and I’m not claiming everyone will share my opinion of it as being boring as hell, and I’m a freakin’ Soviet scholar), maybe I’d have a stronger opinion.

    Presently, however, I got nothin’.

  6. “…the points of divergence are not strong enough to sustain this attack.”

    From the most petulant of fancies are great schisms born. Seems like Stacy has become a magnet for stories of the inevitable urge to redouble offensive effort when clearly a retreat is warranted.

    I hope when my turn comes I’ll recognize the situation.

  8. You’ve uncovered the moats of muck around the publishing castles. Everyone wants the other boaters to paddle somewhere else. Get your own corner, I was here first.

    Blender on 1. Properly mixed metaphor will ensue.

  9. Table of contents
    0. Apology for the roundabout nature of my comment. This section comprises my apology. I just had several different things to say about it all and I didn’t see an easy way to make it more brief.
    1. Why I read this blog
    2. Cut to the chase: West is wrong, and her wrongness will dissuade people from being effective anti-communists
    3. Laying out my opinions

    1. I read this blog because I’m watching your battle against the BK/NR Axis of Criminal Activity. I hope the harassment and pettiness stops, and I hope the bad guys get served justice for as much of their bad acts as is practical. It really sickens me to see these people causing trouble, then using vile, inexcusable harassment tactics to try to intimidate people into silence. Please consider that other people are watching your blog and stand by to help in case the wheels of justice get stuck in a rut.

    2. West’s central claims are irresponsibly sensationalist (“occupation”) and incorrect (regarding which people were spies, how the war was conducted, and how decisions were made in the dangerous game of playing Stalin against Hitler). There is already a big body of carefully done work that proves that Soviet communist penetration was very bad. I hope the general public will become more aware of this respectable body of work. I also hope they don’t become convinced by West’s writing in the process, because then they will go around spouting wrong crap that will make us anti-communists look like idiots. I suspect this is exactly why Radosh thinks it’s important to argue with West. Of course, one must use just and fair tactics, and let the facts discredit her. As it turns out, they do. Please don’t let HER discredit the rest of us.

    3. It is a shame that the public has so little awareness of how badly the US was penetrated by Soviet communists before, during, and shortly after WW2. My personal opinion is that the left is loathe to admit it, because some of the people on “their side” must take blame for enabling it, and moreover, they don’t want to be open to accusations of being on the side of the communists. I think they should take their licks and work harder on not being co-opted, and while they’re at it, repudiate communism altogether. I hope the public learns the truth about how badly leftists failed us with their wrong ideology and their over-eagerness to listen to pro-communist, pro-Soviet arguments. I hope the public learns that”progressive” leftists like Henry A. Wallace, besides being wrong about policy, were like an open door to Soviet spies.

    If we let people like West throw sloppy, cherry-picking, semi-researched, amateur accusations into the mix, there is a higher chance the public will NEVER understand the problems of the left and communism. This is because the public’s main knowledge about communist infiltration comes from the McCarthy episode. Whatever else you think about the man, he made outrageous, sweeping, vague claims, and then did NOTHING substantial to back them up. The anti-communist movement would have been far more successful if he’d kept his big stupid hard-drinking mouth out of the discussion and left it to people with a higher hit/miss ratio. If you keep pumping West, she’ll be used as another strawman to portray all anti-communists as sloppy amateurs who accuse carelessly and sensationalize for attention.

    Also, nothing in Radosh’s writings diminished his excellent credentials as someone pointing out certain threats that have come from the left. His rebuttals of West leave intact the true history that the communist infiltration was, in fact, still very serious and deadly. He also deserves special credit for helping shed light on how crypto-communists furthered their agenda behind the scenes.

    Anyway, if you keep posting wrong crap, I’m still pulling for you in this BK/NR thing. Nobody deserves the evil bullying and harassing their team is guilty of.

  11. Radosh was never taught by his mother “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”

    Even if West is completely, utterly, abjectly wrong it doesn’t excuse how Radosh is treating her.

  12. What these people need is a flowchart to navigate when to it is or isn’t acceptable to engage in the circular firing squad. I can’t draw for crap so I’ll see if I can do this with words until one of you smarter people translates Zilla to Normal People speak….

    Person A: Hates Commies
    Person B: Hates Commies

    Are commies causing trouble?

    If yes, go kick commie asses.

    Do Person A & Person B Hate Commies?

    If yes, go kick commie asses.

    Do Person A & Person B like each other?

    If yes, go kick commie asses.
    If no, GO KICK THE COMMIES’ FUCKING ASSES ANYWAY, YOU IDJITS, BECAUSE THEY ARE COMMIES AND THEY NEED THEIR ASSES TO BE KICKED! You may kick each other’s asses later, after the commies have been defeated.

    *** Replace the word “commie” with jihadi for the flowchart on how the counterjihad blogs need to learn to get on with eachother too because there is a LOT of this sort of shit going on over in those circles all the time. ****

    Let’s go and kick the bad guys’ asses, it doesn’t matter if we don’t like each other, we can kill each other later at our leisure (or have a beer together, your choice) after we have saved civilization, thank you very much. Now let’s go kick some bad guy’s asses.

  13. You know what, I may have to pull a Belvedere and make the above comment into a post at my own blog. If anyone would like to create a graphic for me flow-chart style, I’d be very grateful and I will announce your awesomeness to the world from my blog where it will be seen by DOZENS of people! 🙂

  14. This was interesting, but I think you lost a lot of credibility when you say that McCarthy, “made outrageous, sweeping, vague claims, and then did NOTHING substantial to back them up.”

    I mean, that’s true in the case of, say, Marshall (a rather large exception, to be sure), but is absolutely false for the majority of his claims.

    I haven’t read West or Radosh’s critique, but I have read Evans and Radosh’s critique of Evans, and Radosh did not fare well there (sometimes, it’s like he didn’t even read the book).

  16. I long ago reached the conclusion that Horowitz and Radosh are better ignored. While they have done some good work, both have yielded to PC time and again. Lawrence Auster is a very good example of the sort of man Horowitz is. Radosh, OTOH, has many times back ventured into leftism and has shown he has not recovered either. Radical leftists can never be trusted, especially when they seem to have converted.

  17. “did not fare well” is an understatement. Evans owned Radosh when it was over, and I’m sure he is still feeling the butt hurt, thus the reaction to West.
    If Radosh has the facts on his side, then use them. Take her step by step and refute her. That he is not doing that says far more about Radosh than it does about West. Frankly, I don’t think Radosh knows as much as he likes to make out, and the clash with Evans pretty well demonstrated that.

  18. My mother used to say this. It was not advice she followed herself, as she well understood it was only a passive-aggressive ploy by which one told another to shut up while claiming to be nicer than thou.

    She also used to say, “Don’t bring up politics or religion.” She actually followed this one, as she understood the irrationality of those who raise such issues yet are personally affronted should anyone have the temerity to disagree.

  19. Thanks for the support.

    Here’s my thing: I urge people to read Diana West’s book, rather than taking Ron Radosh’s word that Diana West is an irresponsible conspiracy theorist.

    Without regard for the merits of Diana’s book, or of Radosh’s criticisms, the tactics used in this war have been atrocious and I lament the entire unnecessary conflict. This has been my stance all along, and it was a conflict begun by Radosh.

    I’ve known David Horowitz since 1999, have often interviewed him and promoted his books and other projects. I feel that David let his friend Ron draw him into this fight, when it would have been the wiser course to have urged Radosh to be more temperate in his criticisms.

    My advice was never solicited by anyone involved in this conflict, however, and neither side seems inclined to back away now.

  21. If Horowitz and Radosh can be allowed to get away with treating West like this, they will be equally at liberty to do the same to any one of us who ever cultivates a voice people choose to listen to.

  23. So much for the free marketplace of ideas. It’s not, “I believe you’re mistaken, Ms. West.” No, instead it’s wall-to-wall scorched earth, burn her to the ground, salt the earth, and scatter the stones where she stood.

    It’s like Henry Kissinger once said, academic politics are so vicious because the stakes are so small.

  25. …it’s wall-to-wall scorched earth, burn her to the ground, salt the earth, and scatter the stones where she stood.

    Tactics taken straight from the Leftist Playbook [Chapter 23, if you’re interested].

  26. I suspect Radosh would do better with a ‘now that you’ve read the entertaining popularizer, Ms. West, if you want to seriously dig into the topic led by the preeminent scholar, then I have a book for you….’

    The notion that everyone wants to read a deeply scholarly book as their first intro to a topic is a form of short-sighted greed. A generous mind would, in the long run, be more beneficial to Mr. Radosh.

  29. IMHO, this could all have been avoided, or at least mitigated, had FrontPageMag not “purged” the initial review of West’s book. It’s not that unusual to have opposing views published in the same place. The appearance of air-brushing history is what made this seem so venomous on FPM’s part.

    West’s conclusions may be on or off the mark. (I’m still reading the book, and so far she is pretty convincing; and she does footnote extensively.) Regardless, I don’t think they are out of the realm of reasonable possibility. Thus, those who take issue with her should do so reasonably. Having read Radosh’s review of her book, and other articles supporting Radosh on FPM, it appears that FPM and Radosh have abandoned reason for venom and ad hominem argumentation.

  31. Horowitz started with Larry Auster. Radosh took the next shot on M. Stanton Evans, but Evans had the channels available to him to reduce Radosh to quivering, steaming pile.
    Horowitz is more concerned with being a respectable individual than with the truth. Radosh is more worried that someone may say something he doesn’t like and will divert attention from him.
    With the Auster situation, Horowitz proved he was a poltroon. By publishing the vile Dershowitz he showed he was still a leftist. Radosh is just being the self centered man he is. Neither are worth the time of day, even if West is dead wrong.

    Horowitz and Radosh are just a couple of popinjays.

    Ha Nixon! I used the word before you did! So there!

  33. Horowitz is genetically unable to act in that fashion. he is still living the radical life, he’s just masquerading as a conservative this time around. He loves kicking up a stink, but he’s not interested in being an actual conservative as they are racist, nasty people. Look up how he treated Larry Auster. It will be enlightening. He’s just acting in character.

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