_______________RIGHT ON! THE VAST LEFT-WING CONSPIRACY BY DAVID HOROWITZ (01/02/99)

I wish to respond briefly to David Horowitz's article regarding the statement "Historians in Defense of the Constitution," which I, along with about 400 others, signed. Though my liberal and left-leaning friends won't like to hear this, Horowitz is a friend and acquaintance. When I've thought he was right about something, I've said so, and I've said so publicly. Hence, when I think Horowitz is wrong, I should say so too, and I think he is wrong now. Were a few of the signers of the statement not professional historians? Yes. Had those few also written important scholarly works of a historical nature? Yes. Is it insulting and wrong to suggest that inclusion of such distinguished contributors to historical knowledge as Orlando Patterson or Henry Louis Gates was an effort at affirmative action? Yes. Were some of us signers historians of Europe? You're damn right we are. Were most of the signers historians of American history? Yes they were. The key points that David Horowitz fails to grasp are as follows: First, the statement was titled "Historians in Defense of the Constitution," not historians in defense of the nationalization of Microsoft, socialism and class struggle in America or united in struggle against American imperialism. The much denounced "radical" academy turned out to defend a document that embodies elements of conservative and liberal traditions and not an ounce of radicalism. The principles defended by those of us who signed are the separation of powers, the correct meaning of high crimes and misdemeanors and the long-term stability of the office of the presidency. Horowitz's article is so driven by anger at "the left" that it fails to acknowledge that we signers -- I speak for myself now -- really do believe that the language of the Constitution is clear and that the effort to drive President Clinton from office was, from the beginning, illegitimate and an offense against the Constitution's clear meaning. Finally, I am indeed a historian of modern Europe and modern Germany. Any historian of 20th century Europe and of its totalitarian experiences knows a great deal about the use of "rule of law" to destroy personal freedoms and liberties, the dangers of prosecutors with unlimited powers to criminalize the acts of political opponents and the destruction of the boundary between public and private life. There was a time when American conservatives -- certainly in the Goldwater tradition -- knew a thing or two about the value of privacy and the dangers of big government. That conservatism has been nowhere in evidence in this past year. Not a single one of the Republican politicians or conservative pundits whose every other word in the 1980s was "totalitarianism" has dared to point out that the effort to impeach President Clinton has a whiff of the totalitarian temptation about it. This urge to eradicate the boundary between public and private life, to tolerate a partisan effort to overturn a democratic election, to acquiesce in what conservatives, such as Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, understood was the very dangerous institution of the office of independent counsel does remind some of us European historians of the purges of twentieth century dictatorships and of the fanaticism of virtue in European history. Eloquent in denouncing these currents when they appeared in Europe's totalitarian experiences, today's American conservatives have fallen silent when their own party was hijacked by the hard right. If, as Horowitz writes with peculiar confidence, the privacy of public figures will be restored after this agonizing, drawn out attempted coup d'état, it will take place as a result of the defeat of as many Republican politicians as possible. For the Republican Party and its defenders, in the opinion of this historian, now constitute a threat to our liberties and freedoms, to our rights of privacy, to presumptions of innocence and to my understanding of the rule of law. What has been done to President Clinton, the most powerful political figure in the country -- and I am not defending his actions -- can be done to those of us who lack the financial and legal resources he has to defend himself. I will not forget this absolutely unnecessary year-long agony, which has reached the point it has only and solely because the zealots in the Republican Party have pushed it forward. Moderate Republicans -- now a contradiction in terms -- and conservative commentators such as Horowitz, far from denouncing these zealots have cheered them on. Having got in bed with the impeachment radicals, the Republican Party will now face the consequences. I confess: On several occasions I voted for a Republican. Never again. For that the Republicans and their associated supporting intellectuals have no one to blame but themselves. -- Jeffrey Herf Department of History, Ohio University All of my disagreements with Horowitz notwithstanding, his complete misunderstanding of Richard Rorty's political views are glaring. He states: "The politicization went so far that, a few years ago, philosopher Rorty smugly applauded the fact that 'the power base of the left in America is now in the universities, since the trade unions have largely been killed off.'" On the contrary, Rorty is one of the few old-fashioned leftists remaining in the academy -- one who, far from being smug about the rise of the academic left as the last bastion of leftist power, bemoans it. He sees it as a decline that leftists are ensconced in the academy rather than working in legislatures or in trade unions. He is the most outspoken left-wing critic of the PC/academic left that increasingly places importance on ideas and identity rather than issues, reform and class. -- Brian Erb Bismarck, N.D. I was a bit surprised to see David Horowitz suggest that the American Historical Society should "press for the systematic hiring of professors with under-represented conservative viewpoints." This statement turned my head, because I was under the mistaken impression that conservatives were opposed to politically motivated affirmative action programs. I guess all is fair in love and cultural war, right? -- Mike Silverman David Horowitz argues that academe has been taken over by the left. How is he to explain departments of economics, which are almost entirely staffed by "neoclassical" economists? Professors of economics of neoclassical bent argue tirelessly against progressive taxation and redistributive policies. I would argue they have a much greater influence on the political economy of the United States than historians and postmodernistic professors of literature. -- Stephen Fromm SALON | Feb. 4, 1999

R E C E N T L Y+| CHASING MONICA BY BARBARA EHRENREICH

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