That the ever-platitudinous Jack E. White has called David Horowitz a "bigot" is, of course, stupid and unprofessional but hardly surprising to the weary Time readers who, like hikers confronted with a bog, must rapidly skirt White's flatulent prose whenever it appears.

But that Time's editors allowed the sophomoric libel to pass raises questions about the magazine's process of internal review: Was this simply a late-summer slip-up (in which case Time will promptly admit it), or is there a double standard for PC propagandists like White?

I respect the astute and rigorously unsentimental David Horowitz as one of America's most original and courageous political analysts. He has the true 1960s spirit -- audacious and irreverent, yet passionately engaged and committed to social change.

Although we are both columnists for Salon, I do not know Horowitz -- aside from when I was interviewed on his radio show in California eight years ago. But I regard him as an important contemporary thinker who is determined to shatter partisan stereotypes and to defy censorship wherever it occurs -- notably, in this case, in the area of discourse on race, which is befogged with sanctimony and hypocrisy.

As a scholar who regularly surveys archival material, I think that, a century from now, cultural historians will find David Horowitz's spiritual and political odyssey paradigmatic for our time.