Tallahassee, Florida
Soon after the Terri Schiavo circus tent came down a new one popped up.
And out from under the new tent crawled creepy former new lefty, turned Joe McCarthy wannabe David (I hate my dead daddy because he was a commie) Horowitz.
New ringleader Horowitz replaces the recently departed fetus fetishist Randall Terry of Operation Rescue fame who held the Florida legislature and Jeb Bush virtual hostage for several weeks.
The Horowitz freak show, however, only lasted a day.
Horowitz was in Tallahassee to tesify on behalf of a zany, patently unconstitutional bill authored by Ocala Republican Dennis Baxley, who, as irony has it, was a key player in pushing the so-called “Terri’s Law.”
Baxley’s new cause is the Horowitz inspired “Academic Freedom Act” , a bill so vague and so clearly aimed at gagging free speech on American campuses, that even Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn might well blanch.
The bill requires student fees to be spent on “a viewpoint-neutral basis” and the requires exposure to a “broad range of serious scholarly opinion.”
In his whiny testimony, Horowitz, claimed conservatives were victims of the liberal bias and needed to be protected. Like the federal and state Terri laws, the Horowitz/Baxley bill is selective. Terri’s law protected only Terri, and the latter only conservatives.
Like Terri’s law, the Baxley/Horowitz bill is not being met with open arms, although it did pass an education committee in the House.
According to the St Pete Times, a House staff analsyis says the bill would be a financial disaster as a result of ineveitable lawsuits. It would cost the universities $4.2 million just to hire attorneys.
Horowitz, who has the unseemly habit of putting his index finger in his nose when under stress, was rattled when House Rep. Dan Gelber of Miami Beach asked Horowitz to cite any examples from his Florida file of conservatives being harrassed.
Horowitz said he could think of one, but didn’t know all the facts.
Unlike Randall Terry, who cracked a mean whip and had more than a few Republicans speaking in tongues, Horowitz’s proved a less than stellar ringleader.
Senate President Tom Lee told the St Pete Times, he “wasn’t sure it was needed.”
And Jeb Bush seemed to feign support by saying he too thinks liberal speech is more valued than conservative speech on American campuses, but he wasn’t certain…”if the bill is the correct solution.”
But then, as anyone who has ever received one of Horowitz’s fundraising emails knows well, for the Oedipally-fixated Red Diaper Baby it’s all about the Benjamins anyway.
Or to paraphrase (Hollywood) sports agent Jerry Maguire: “Show Horowitz the money.”
JACK McCARTHY lives in Tallahassee. He can be reached at: jackm32301@yahoo.com