Graham crack-ups?

(Hat tip: James D. Miller at Tech Central Station.)

Professor Graham Larkin sounds off on David Horowitz and the Academic Bill of Rights. His launching pad is a book with a staid, boring title worthy of any weighty academic treatise:

It has been heartening to witness the recent runaway success of Princeton emeritus Harry G. Frankfurt’s latest book, On Bullshit. First published as an essay in 1988, Frankfurt’s splendid study is largely an effort to distinguish between lies and bullshit. A liar, Frankfurt notes, acknowledges truth-systems yet tries to pass off information that is not true. “Someone who lies and someone who tells the truth,” he tells us, “are playing on opposite sides, so to speak, in the same game.” The bullshitter, by contrast, fails to really acknowledge the validity of any truth-claims or truth-systems.

[This sounds a lot like "deconstructionism" to me. At least, that sounds like how "deconstructionism" has always been explained to me.]

Anyway, why does Larkin object to David Horowitz? Well...

...Horowitzian techniques, ranging from cooked statistics, race-baiting and guilt by association to editorial foul play and baffling logorrhea.

Well, let's see. "Guilt by association"? You mean like:

David Horowitz, liar extraordinaire and author of the incomparable bullshitting manual The Art of Political War and Other Radical Pursuits (Spence Publishing, 2000). This book, much applauded by Karl Rove...

That sure looks like something by association.

...he believes you should drown your political opponents in a steady stream of bullshit, emanating every day from newspapers, TV and radio programs, as well as lavishly funded smear sites and blogs.

And

...For instance he tried to convince readers that his conservative-funded bill...

I find it interesting that Larkin makes a point about colleges being "civilized venues" in one sentence, in the same sentence where he describes anyone as:

...descend[ing] into fits of indignant self-pity when someone responds with a pie to your face.

Obviously, David Horowitz is too dim to realize that a pie to the face is considered civilized behavior on the college lecture circuit. (Of course, etiquette demands that a thrown pie be served from the left. Liquids that are splashed onto a speaker have to be thrown from the right side.) That anyone would be baffled by this concept should not be construed as anything resembling baffling logorrhea on the part of the good professor.

The article is peppered with links, and it may be worth following them to see if they say what they are purported to say. However, since Larkin so vigorously opposes the promulgation of lies and bovine waste, I'm sure the links illustrate precisely what he claims they do.