Naomi Wolf's Nightmare, Or Fanciful Inventions of the Hysterical Left

Few tasks can be as thankless as correcting the fabrications of the hysterical left, but doing so is necessary all the same. Naomi Wolf's absurd new book, The End of America, has been praised by the founder of MoveOn.org, as an "alarm for all American patriots" (he should know) and already suitably reviewed by Jacob Laksin in these pages. I will confine my remarks to the two paragraphs in which she deals with the fascist threat that my work represents. 

The End of America is organized around the 10 steps that according to Wolf conservatives have undertaken to turn America into a fascist state . Her model, of course, is Nazi Germany and her strategy is to draw parallels between the steps Hitler took to establish fascism in the 1930's and the efforts of Bush and his supporters to duplicate them now. Each chapter is devoted to a step. The eighth is "Target Key Individuals" and I provide her lead-off example, although she also manages to compare the liberal academic Stanley Fish, once head of the fashionably left Duke English Department,  to Nazi philosopher Martin Heidegger. Here is what Wolf writes about me (and Hitler):

"Universities keep alight the campfires of free speech, so it's not surprising that Bush supporters seem to have a strategy to target critics on campus. In California, a bill called SB5, the 'Student Bill of Rights,' seeks legally to 'balance' classroom discussion. David Horowitz, of the well-funded, right-wing Center for the Study of Popular Culture, drafted a model of this law. His version has found supporters in Congress. [Drumroll....] On May 1, 1933 the NeueStudetenrecht law was passed in Germany, aimed at using student organizations to align universities with the values of the National Socialist State."

And that's it. I hope that liberals are embarrassed by this preposterous performance, but given the psychotic break of liberalism in the Bush era that is unlikely. Wolf's book is selling very well and comes with high praise from the Library Journal which calls it "cogently argued" and from academics like Blanched Wiesen Cook and Mark Crispin Miller. Radio America's Thom Hartmannn calls it "one of the most improtant books that's been written ... in my lifetime."

You probably noticed already that there is no parallel whatsoever between a bill that promotes student rights and one that compels student organizations to fall into line with a totalitarian state. Wolf's stretch is underwritten by her insinuation that a law that would require classroom balance would be a step on the slippery slope to fascist legislation. But here Naomi is simply making things up. The text of SB5 is readily available on our website at www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org (you can access it here.) You will search it in vain for the word "balance" or even the concept. The bill is designed to prevent the establishment of classroom orthodoxies, quite the opposite of Wolf's claim. 

You will also notice that no one is targeted by this law, even in Wolf's made up version. To remedy this gap in her argument, she next turns to the case of Ward Churchill (without of course mentioning the fact that I defended him). She alleges that an unspecified group of alumni supporters of the Bush administration demanded that the Board of Regents to fire Churchill. She then constructs this sequence to flesh out the parallel between Hitler and Colorado:

"Republican state legislators added their pressure. The state legislature oversees the Board of Regents, and the Board of Regents oversees the president of the University of Colorado." Actually no. Wolf is simply making this up. The regents of the University of Colorado are directly elected by the people of Colorado. They are independent of the legislature. But then when you are spinning leftist fantasies, only fascists will be available to point this out, and what decent person would listen to them? 

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