Uncle Ho (by Billmon)

As a follow up to my Glass House Resident post … this has got to be one of the funniest posts I have seen. Billmon (here is the link) had an e-mail conversation with David Horowitz regarding the NYT’s efforts to expose Sec. Rummy’s vacation house of residence so it can be booby trapped by the evil Muslims living amongst us, don’tcha know.

Or so Horowitz, Jessica McBride (she didn't actually post anything, but she's so vapid I like to include her anyway) and the astoundingly shallow and insecure Peter DiGaudio would have us believe. The post is here in its entirety … thank you Billmon.

Uncle Ho
This evening I had an extremely weird e-mail conversation with David Horowitz -- yes that David Horowitz -- stemming from a trivial comment I left on his latest screeching rant about the Cheney-Rumsfeld vacation home flap.

Horowitz (on his blog): The fact that Rumsfeld responded to the Times request to take the pictures means what? What else could he say?

Me: How about "no"?

Horowitz killed the comment (or at least, I don't see it displayed on his blog) but he e-mailed me a rambling response that began by pointing to his proposed explanation for why Rumsfeld muscled under to those street toughs at the Times: "If Rumsfeld had said 'no' . . . that would merely have confirmed their view of this administration as secretive and repressive" (again, that's from Horowitz's blog, not his e-mail.)

So in what parallel universe has "confirming that the administration is secretive and repressive" ever stopped Rummy before?

For some quirky reason, virtually everything that emerges from the mouth (or pen) of a right-wing hysteric lately seems to remind me of a Monty Python sketch. And this was certainly no exception. There's simply no way you can read Horowitz's daft explanation and not be reminded of the one about the two-bit hoods who try to run their protection racket on . . . the British military:

Luigi: You've got a nice army base 'ere, Colonel. Be a shame if somethin' were to 'appen to it.

Colonel: What?

Dino: 'ow many tanks you got, Colonel?

Colonel: About five hundred.

Dino:Well you oughter be careful, Colonel, 'cos things break, don't they?

I mean the notion that the New York Times could use the threat of bad publicity to literally extort the Secretary of Defense into letting them publish a picture of his house is just falling down, can't breathe, snot-spurting-out-of-your-nose funny. Hell, in the real world, Rummy would just have Dick come over and shoot the Times photographer in the face with his shotgun. Problem solved.

The point is, nobody in their right mind could possibly believe what Horowitz wrote. And judging by the rest of his email, plus the two others he sent me in quick succession, Horowitz is every bit as loony as people keep telling me he his -- a real meshuggeneh, to borrow that fine Yiddish phrase.

I can't share the e-mails with you -- well, I could, but that would be a crass violation of blogfascist etiquette, plus he'd probably sue. And while having David Horowitz file a frivolous lawsuit against me might turn to be, to use the technical legal term, a real money maker for me and my lawyer, I don't need the money or the aggravation right now.

But take my word for it, David definitely has what the shrinks like to call "issues." One would have assumed 25+ years of flagellating himself for betraying his country, or his parents, or both, would have been enough to appease his inner Big Brother, but apparently not. In any case, in addition to having an inferiority complex big enough to swallow the fucking Hindenberg, Horowitz seems to have a congenital need to argue. (Must. fight. Monty Python. metaphor.)

A commentator on one right-wing site (freerepublic.com, as I recall) once described Horowitz as a porcupine who never stops bristling, and that's about right -- to the point where he apparently can't even let a silly three-word comment from a minor-league lefty blogger go unanswered.

I would have thought David would have more important things to do with his time: running his rat lines into the Middle East Studies Association, tracing the sinister links between Harry Belafonte and Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman -- above all, figuring out new and nasty ways to draw media attention to himself.

But apparently not. I guess even the slander business has its slow nights.