On February 28th John Carlson gave complete control of his 2nd hour to David Horowitz, who was pushing his new book on college professors gone wild. In the 30 minutes that Horowitz was on the air, Carlson asked maybe a half-dozen softball questions and made a few statements of fawning praise. The rest of the time in the show was handed over to Horowitz to filibuster on his crackpot theories of how unknown professors hidden in the bowls of academia are an existential threat to the country.

Carlson allowed his guest to make a number of unfounded allegations against David Barash, a psychology professor at the University of Washington. A choice example:

HOROWITZ: David Barash is in violation of academic freedom standards and professional standards at the University of Washington, and at present there's no way to hold him to account.

This is a classic situation where John Carlson allows a fellow right winger to make personal attacks and outrageous claims without any attempt at clarification, investigation, or even a demand for specific examples of the alleged behavior. If a host was interested in providing listeners with the truth, he would be expected to ask actual follow up questions. In this case, one would expect actual first-hand evidence from Professor Barash's students or his peers in the faculty that would prove that he inappropriately forces his own political views on his classes.

Unfortunately for listeners, today was not a day where Carlson felt like providing any actual value to his audience. Perhaps he should rename the show "The Random Radical Right Bookselling Hour".

Readers who want some actual facts on David Barash can refer to very good article in today's Seattle Times.