His main line of attack is that of the standard political hack, concocting a farrago of innuendoes, half-truths and out-and-out lies in order to beat down those whom he sees as his political opponents. However, when he’s attacked in the same terms as those he himself engages in, he’s perfectly happy to appeal to academic norms of reasoned debate in order to accuse his accusers of themselves being politicized. When academics on the contrary try to engage him in reasoned debate, they’ve lost the battle before they’ve started it. They grant his (often preposterous) claims a credibility that they don’t deserve, and set themselves up to have the bejasus beaten out of them through distortion, selective editing etc.Thus, it’s not the kind of debate where the reasoned adducement of facts and academic expertise serves any useful purpose (especially as the status of academic expertise is itself what’s at stake). Nor, on the basis of the material record, is adherence to these norms likely either to chasten Horowitz towards better behaviour or to edify the audience.