The Brock Virus: How a Single Lie Infected the Blogosphere

As noted in the preceding blog entry, we at Moonbat Central no longer intend to quibble over details of the UNC affair. David Brock and his cohorts may chew at will on the bones of this ugly incident and suck from its marrow what oily satisfaction they will. Our point is made. The incident occurred. Those who spent two weeks insinuating that it never happened were proved wrong.

In bringing to an end this tiresome discussion, we present to our readers, in a spirit of dispassionate scientific inquiry, an epidemiological study following the journey of a peculiarly virulent lie through the blogosphere; that lie being, of course, the implication that the persecuted UNC student was a mere "urban legend" who never existed.

Horowitz Accuses UNC Professor of Politically Persecuting a Student
December 5, 2003
In a FrontPage article titled, "The Professors' Orwellian Case," David Horowitz writes:

"The American Association of University Professors prides itself on being a guardian of academic freedom. … However, as a guild organization whose members are professors, it is not surprising that the AAUP has not been so mindful of the academic rights of students… [W]hen student rights have been widely infringed by faculty and university administrations, the AAUP has tended to overlook the infringements and even defend them. … [S]tudent speech rights have been curtailed and students’ academic freedoms abused on an unprecedented scale. … This year, for example, a criminology class at a Colorado university was given an assignment to write a paper on `Why George Bush Is A War Criminal.' Bad enough. But a student who chose [instead} to submit a paper on `Why Saddam Hussein Is A War Criminal' received a failing grade (for political incorrectness)."

Mano Singham Insinuates that Horowitz's Charge is an "Urban Legend"
March 4, 2005
In a Cleveland Plain Dealer article headlined, "The Liberal Fiend Can't Be Found," one Dr. Mano Singham – a nuclear physicist at Case Western University – reports:

"I decided to track down the professor to ask what the full story was. … So I called the acting head of the political science department, the dean's office and the provost's office at the University of Northern Colorado and asked them if they knew anything more. They had never heard of this story and were all surprised to hear that they were supposedly harboring this fiend. …So does this mysterious professor actually exist? Did this incident actually happen? It is hard to say no for certain, since that involves proving a negative. But there are some characteristics of urban legends that this story shares, in particular the absence of details (names, places, dates) that enable one to pin it down to anything concrete."

Mano Singham repeats his insinuation the same day in a blog entry titled, "Urban Legends in Academia?"

Brock's MediaMatters.org Turbocharges Singham's Accusation
March 7, 2005, 8:06 PM EST
Soros hatchet man David Brock posts an article on his Web site titled, "Media Repeat Unsubstantiated Horowitz Tale of Anti-Conservative Bias on Campus." It quotes Mano Singham at length and echoes Singham's insinuation that Horowitz is trafficking in "urban legends."

Singham later credits MediaMatters.org with giving a turbocharge to his "urban legend" op-ed piece in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He writes:

"The op-ed was picked up by the website of the media watchdog group Media Matters for America and featured on March 8 as one example of what they alleged are serial distortions by Horowitz on a variety of topics.

"Media Matters for America seems to have a big readership and this news item set off a flurry of activity with many more people investigating this essay story in particular and Horowitz’s claims in general. (See Cliopatria and Canadian Cynic for some of the blogs following the story.)"

Cliopatria Echoes Mano Singham
March 11, 2005, 1:01 AM
"The dog that didn't bark this time is David Horowitz's…," writes Cliopatria blogger Jonathan Dresner. "I suspect that he's been caught up in an urban legend that he can't let go of…"

Cliopatria Echoes Mano Singham II
March 12, 2005 at 2:11 AM
Cliopatria blogger Ralph E. Luker challenges Horowitz to respond to Jonathan Dresner's insinuations that Horowitz is "caught up in an urban legend."

Instapundit Echoes Mano Singham
March 12, 2005, 6:12 PM
"IS DAVID HOROWITZ RECYCLING AN URBAN MYTH?" asks blogger Glenn Reynolds. "Deadtree organs do that all the time, but that's no excuse."

If David Brock's Media Matters gave Singham's accusation a turbocharge, Glenn Reynolds put it into warp drive. Most major conservative blogs take their cue from Reynolds' Instapundit.com, looking to Reynolds each day to define what's hot and what's not. Leftwing blogger Chris Bowers of MyDD credits Reynolds with the power to keep the entire conservative blogosphere "on message." In an influential piece titled, "Top-Down Right-Wing Blogosphere Growing Powerful" Bowers writes:

"Glenn Reynolds… can send the traffic of any blog he links skyrocketing to a degree no left-wing blog can even come close to matching… Right-wing blog traffic, and the articles people tend to read on any individual right-wing blog, has a remarkable correlation to the interests of the top-right wing bloggers, and Glenn Reynolds in particular. That is why, in the title of this article, I called the right-wing blogosphere a top-down operation."

Curiously, given Reynolds' acknowledged influence over right-leaning blogs, Reynolds himself does not even claim to be a conservative. In the leftwing British newspaper The Guardian, Reynolds writes:

"The Guardian thinks I'm a Republican and a conservative… but in truth I'm neither. … I have been a card-carrying member of only two parties, the Democrats and, when I grew disenchanted with them, the Libertarians.

"I broke with the Democrats because, under President Clinton, they seemed to have abandoned their traditional support for civil liberties: Clinton's 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act was, in many ways, a more sweeping assertion of government power than Bush's Patriot Act, which was really just about plugging some holes in the Clinton legislation."

Volokh Conspiracy Echoes Mano Singham
March 13, 2005, 11:32 AM
Blogger Randy Barnett of Volokh Conspiracy writes:

"Another Urban Legend? Have you heard the story of the college professor who asked his class to write a mid-term essay on `Why George Bush is a war criminal,' and then gave an `F' to a student who had been offended by the assignment and had instead turned in an essay on `Why Saddam Hussein is a war criminal'? In an op-ed in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Mano Singham, a researcher at Case-Western, tries to confirm his existence, or that the event actually took place, but is unable to do so."

Cliopatria Echoes Mano Singham III
March 14, 2005 at 12:56 AM
After calling Horowitz's DiscovertheNetwork.org Web site the "NetworkofEvilDesign.orgy," and suggesting that Horowitz's "drones" at FrontPageMagazine.com get their ideas from "the nutworks at FreeRepublic," Cliopatria blogger Ralph E. Luker takes the high road (ahem), writing:

"I invite Horowitz to serious discussion. Will you answer my colleague, Jonathan Dresner's questions about your misuse of evidence? His findings have prominent circulation in the conservative end of the blogosphere, by Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit and Randy Barnett at The Volokh Conspiracy. Dresner put the ball in your `conservative' court, David. Let's have a moment of candor from you. Admit it. And, by the way, what penalty do you think you should incur from your misuse of evidence?"

Scott Jaschik Echoes Mano Singham
March 14, 2005
On the Web site, InsideHigherEd.com, Scott Jaschik writes an article, "The Poster Child Who Can’t Be Found," once again quoting Mano Singham at length, and once again implying that Horowitz's story of the persecuted UNC student is an urban legend.

Horowitz Proves that the Persecuted UNC Student Exists
March 14, 2005, 10:03 AM
On his blog at FrontPageMagazine.com, David Horowitz presents irrefutable proof that his charge against UNC is no urban legend, and that the persecuted student exists.