By Bonnie Washuk,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Colleges across the country have become “echo chambers” of views of the political left, and that’s not good teaching, a famed conservative activist told a Bates College audience Wednesday night.

Before students can learn, they need to “open their minds,” author David Horowitz said before a packed room at the Muskie Archives. Instead, colleges teach young people “to be embarrassed” by their country.

He also touched on noncollege topics. Democrats “destroyed the credibility of the commander in chief during the midst of a war,” he said. “George Bush has never lied to the American people” about the Iraq war, he added.

Horowitz said Democrats are to blame for problems in inner cities. Welfare, he said, “is the most destructive institution in black America since slavery.” And affirmative action is one of the biggest scams going.

As Horowitz spoke, two armed guards and a bodyguard watched over him. He explained that he’s a “hot button,” and that he asks for security during college visits.

He came to Bates to promote his Academic Bill of Rights. The premise is that all political views must be allowed on campuses. At many colleges, students are overwhelmed by messages that the left says are the correct ones. Conservative or Republican views are mocked, not allowed, or punished with poor grades, he said.

He estimated that 90 percent of professors are professional scholars, but the remaining 10 percent are political activists. He offered examples.

Republican students have told him about English professors who rage against the Iraq war during class. “What is that?”

Columbia University engineering students told him one of their professors showed Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” on the eve of the election.

“One professor blamed hurricanes in Jamaica on George Bush. What is that?” Horowitz asked.

When a political science professor has an anti-Bush poster in the office, a Republican student who thinks Bush is a great president understands that the professor may be hostile to the student’s views.

Everyone has a political point of view. But it’s wrong to vent that prejudice in classrooms, he said. “This is not a free speech issue,” he said. It’s about professionalism.

Horowitz said he met Republican students on the Bates campus. “I’ve seen the anguish on the faces and in voices of students,” he said. “Their ideas are somehow unclean.” That’s not OK, he said.

All students are lectured about diversity and taught to respect differences. “I guarantee you that of all the differences on this campus, the ones that generate the most heat are not differences of race or gender or sexual orientation. They are differences of politics. Equal respect. That’s what we want for college Republicans.”

To that Horowitz got loud applause.

He also spoke about Iraq, saying, “War is a natural condition of mankind.” He slammed Democrats for destroying the president’s credibility. Since Vietnam, the country has grown so used to appeasing foes “the United States has not been able to put an Army in the field for more than four days.”

Saddam Hussein was a mass murderer and a violator of United Nations resolutions. “That’s why we went to war. We made our word good to stop him. And we did stop him.”

He received more applause.

If the United States pulls out of Iraq, “there’ll be a blood bath in Iraq of everyone who voted for their freedom,” he said. There’ll be tens of thousands who’ll be slaughtered, he added.

“The blood will then flow in the streets of New York and Washington” as terrorists target the United States, he said.

The peace movement is not about peace, Horowitz said. It’s about “defeating the United States.”