There have been several excellent takedowns of the odious David Horowitz recently, one by our own Bill Hare, and a series by the relentless Aaron Barlow, one of Horowitz's most trenchant critics.  In one of his more extended critiques this past week, Barlow shows how Horowitz's pretense toward intellectual thoroughness through his use of prosopography (the collective study of a group of people to identify common trends and traits), is a sham, for the very simple reason that he has pre-selected those professors he deems to be most "unhinged."

There is a spot-on reply by commenter pico to this particular entry, one that highlights something that is at the very heart of conservatarian propaganda:

On a broader note, what Horowitz is doing is not surprising: this method of argumentation is the Right's most common and most pernicious: argument by anecdotal evidence.  Think about it:

• A school in some podunk community changes the lyrics to "Silent Night" = War on Christmas.

• A minority is offended by some term his/her boss uses = Political Correctness run amok.

• A comment left on Michelle Malkin's weblog = the Left is unhinged.

• A teacher asks for a moment of silence instead of outright calling it prayer = War on Religion in the classroom.

This is Bill O'Reilly's favorite technique, incidentally.  No background, no research, no context - just stories about 'crazy' people that are used to formulate his personal war on culture.