The Distinguished Professor is just a vile human being. His latest cowardice involves this cheap shot that doesn't address any of the substance of any of the arguments.
I have experienced, first hand, the DP's closed-mindedness and/or dull-wittedness on the subject of Ayn Rand. One thing to keep in mind regarding his vile and vicious (and ignorant! let's not forget ignorant) attacks on Rand and Randians is that a former colleague of his at the University of Texas, Tara Smith, is one of those "lightweights" he implicitly insults, attacks, and slimes with his broad brush. I wonder, just what are the hiring standards at the University of Texas, anyway, and why does the DP impugn them so? This is especially odd considering that the University of Texas philosophy department is ranked No. 20 in the Leiter Report (the DP's long-running project of obsessively ranking things to satisfy his pathological narcissism and elitism).
The fact of the matter is, if it were Brian Leiter against any of the people on the Ayn Rand Society's steering committee, he'd have his ass handed to him, and something tells me that he has an inkling of an awareness of this fact and decides to evade it mentally. How vile! What a creep!