applying Frankfurt's bullshit theory to David Horowitz
History News Network: "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.
The author concludes that �the fact about himself that the liar hides is that he is attempting to lead us away from a correct apprehension of reality; we are not to know that he wants us to believe something he supposes to be false. The fact about himself that the bullshitter hides, on the other hand, is that the truth-values of his statements are of no central interest to him; what we are not to understand is that his intention is neither to report the truth nor to conceal it.�
When applying Frankfurt�s useful distinction, we need, at the very least, to recognize that if something about a particular piece of bullshit happens to be true this does not make it any less bullshit, and that lies and bullshit are by no means mutually exclusive.
Enter L.A. tabloid editor 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, promulgates a political endgame in which brute force triumphs over any notions of intelligence, truth or fair play. The author contends that �[y]ou cannot cripple an opponent by outwitting him in a political debate. You can only do it by following Lenin�s injunc"