Let me begin by apologizing to you fine people for making it seem as though this conference has any merit. Me and conventionette left this awful thing early when we came to the consensus that these people had nothing important to offer. In my time in DC and in politics in general, I have seen speeches by legislatures from Teddy Kennedy to Orrin Hatch. I have covered the "War on Christians" conference, attended many events at the Center for American Progress, and watched plenty of 24 hour news stations. Of all of the things I have seen, these Academic Freedom bastards are by far the most unimpressive and uninspiring.

The majority of the people in attendance were either on one of the panels or were a spouse/ child/ assistant to a panel member. Most the people who asked questions during the Q&A were called on by name by David Horowitz. They would then spend a few minutes talking about how grateful they are for Davey and then would lob him some childish question about his infinite expertise on academia. I have never been in such a room of ass kissing and back patting in my life. It was an orgy of self- gratitude. A circle jerk of congratulatory nonsense. Sorry for the illicit sexual references but I have to make this interesting somehow.

The headliner was to be Horowitz himself but there was a problem with him being the climax: Horowitz was on pretty much every panel. He actually had the balls to set up a conference featuring himself in almost every aspect of it. The interesting thing, however, was how unimpressive Davey was. I was expecting a guy who had the audience in the palm of his hand every time he opened his mouth. I figured that in order to get people to sign on to such a terrible and unnecessary idea as the Academic Bill of Rights (ABOR) he would have to be a charismatic charmer that made you think everything he said was infallible. What I got instead was a genuine loser that would mope up to the microphone, struggle through a speech of scattered thoughts and random anecdotes, and then duck back down into his chair to wait for his next turn. In between panels, he would walk through the crowds of people on his own with few people talking to him. Perhaps it was because they all already knew him. Perhaps it was because he just has an aura of awkwardness. Either way, this tiny man is not the fierce leader I expected. He mentioned in one of his five addresses how he has been compared to Lenin, Trotsky, and Hitler. These comparisons are not only ridiculous in the obvious sense that all Hitler references are ridiculous, but also in the sense that those men were great leaders with wicked causes. Horowitz is a weasel with a bad cause.

The culmination of my time there came when Tom Kirger, a big wig of the American Federation of Teachers asked Horowitz why, if this is a non- partisan issue as Horowitz claims, all of the kids on an earlier panel about abuses on campus were self proclaimed conservative activists. Davey kicked into action. His rant gradually got louder and more absurd and somehow ended up with him talking about a Socialist textbook being read in schools and shouting "You're the AFT, you wont stick up to it, you're to busy defending Sami al- Aryan and other terrorists."

I am going to put this in a Q&A format.
Q: Why are there no liberal students on these panels?
A: You support socialism and terrorism.

If anything this conference is just proof to the sane that Horowitz is not as influential as we might think. He has money, which was spent on fantastic crab cakes, a few friends, all of whom were as dull and boring as Davey himself, and a short fuse that usually ends with him accusing someone of being a terrorist enthusiast.

I don't want to be all negative in my posting on this conference. I would like to congratulate Sean Allen-- the 16 year- old from Colorado who tape recorded his professor comparing Bush II to Hitler-- on winning the first annual Sean Allen Award. The Sean Allen Award is for those who show courage in the name of academic freedom and resist indoctrination in the classroom. So again, congratulations to Sean Allen on winning the Sean Allen award. To the rest of the nominees, you gave it your best and that's all you can ask of yourselves. Better luck next year!


Brandon McBride