Jonah Goldberg: The Toughest Whore in Opposite Town

The great flaw in the liberal tradition is the obligation to respect other people's arguments, even when that other person is a nitwit.

It's the downside of the dialectic. We're expected to engage with everyone, whether or not their facts are wrong, their ideas are immoral or they're obviously just using the vocabulary of politics to express problems at home. Result: Laura Ingraham.

And, you know, Plato's Republic.

Point, counterpoint. It's an intellectual duty, like cleaning up after your dog. That's why, starting next week, we're expected to get our pants in a bunch about Doubleday's proud new contribution to the discourse: Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning.

Or, A German-Owned Publisher Calls a Rabbi a Nazi and That's Just the Title.

(Doubleday is Bertelsmann. The phrase "politics of meaning" was coined by Tikkun founder Michael Lerner. Creepy? Sure. But it's all just for fun.)

The author is our old friend Jonah Goldberg, whose other intellectual achievements include being the fat guy who knows every episode of The Simpsons by heart, and rising to the dizzying heights of the KCIA's National Review from his humble origins, being born in a whorehouse.

And that's not really fair. The Korean CIA doesn't technically run the National Review.

It's more of an imprint. Like Doubleday and Bertelsmann.

Where was I?

Jonah Goldberg, the lovable contrarian gadfly, is looking to push your buttons, and from the available excerpts and the reviews so far, it seems he'll be doing it by sticking it to Woodrow Wilson, who's been getting a free ride for far too long.

You're next, William H. Seward.

Woodrow Wilson? We're supposed to get steamed that someone is talking smack about Woodrow Wilson? It's like blaspheming against Phar Lap.

You think Jonah Goldberg must be joking, but that can't be it, because he's not quoting The Simpsons, and he doesn't have dip on his hands. And you're not thinking: I hate this party, I want to go home.

How did Goldberg get stuck with the unenviable task of trying to be irreverent about Woodrow Wilson? Because the Kennedys and FDR are played out. Christopher Hitchens has already done Mother Teresa and Ann Coulter cashed in on re-evaluating the last polarizing historical figure a few living people could actually pick out of a police line-up, Joseph McCarthy.

(One advantage Goldberg has over Coulter? His tits are real.)

So it was Woodrow Wilson or nothing. Hillary had better get elected soon, or conservatives will have nothing to hate but themselves.

But there's more to "liberal fascism" than just the iron heel of the League of Nations. Goldberg's secret history also proves that everyone who wasn't a fascist really was a fascist, pacifism is violence, secularism is religious oppression, social security is Stalinism, compassion is censorship, black is white, anarchy is totalitarianism, slavery is freedom and the only right more precious than racism is mining.

It's that book again.

It's not an argument, exactly, but it will make your teachers dread having to teach you, and attention is good.

The whole point of a book like Liberal Fascism -- besides degrading publishing so TV doesn't look so bad - is to make liberals mad. Cornel West says, "You have got to engage," but sometimes you don't. Sometimes the best thing to do is walk away.

Forget it, Jake. It's Opposite Town.

--

Wait, something about the book's cover just jumped out at me.

Ooooooo! See, he's subverting the Happy Face! (Take that, 1963!) My blood is boiling so hot I could tie-dye a shirt in it. But it isn't even an original twist. Remember the white supremacist sister act, Prussian Blue? Here they are four years ago:

Not liberal fascism. Just plain old fascism.

Jonah Goldberg is so tragically lame, to sell a book he'd steal a logo from a racist child.

Comments

[jnelsonleith]

I knew Jonah was a member of that growing class of right-wing propaganda absurdists when he tried to conflate Bin Laden and critics of the Neocons by calling them "faith-based" (http://www.nelsonleith.com/cblog/archives/367-Jonah-Goldberg-Swallowed-By-The-Whale-of-Obtuseness.html) a term invented by the Neocons themselves to justify funneling govt. funds to charity fronts for evangelical fundamentalists, much like the Saudis funnel govt. money to charity fronts for wahhabi fundamentalists. It seems like the basic strategy of these "big lie" operatives is to confuse the issues so badly that we'll all surrender our liberties to the right just to stop our heads from spinning.

[rabun666]

Jonah is so morally and intellectually lacking and bankrupt he had to even steal the words for the title of his book which is just a reaction to calling the Republicans and the Bush maladministration the soviet-fascist that they are. Who are implementing a soviet-fascist type government for the USA. Hitler, Stalin and all the other liberals. It was the American fascists that plotted to overthrow FDR in the mid 1930's. Just more gibberish from a loser, Jonah.

[richsmith]

Chris, normally I enjoy your thoughtful and witty blogging and general dedication to your quest of tilting at the gasbags of the rightwing noise machine,

but....

this one impressed me as a gross misuse of the ad hominem attack. As I read through it I thought that, if I were teaching Forensics 101 I'd drag this piece out as prime example of a debating technique that was better avoided. However, always doubting my own debating abilities, I went off to the American Heritage® Abridged Dictionary for English Speaking Rightist Ideologues, and low, this is what I found in the form of a qualifying statement:

ad hominem

SYLLABICATION: ad hom.i.nem
ADJECTIVE: Appealing to personal considerations rather than to logic or reason: Debaters should avoid ad hominem arguments that question their opponents' motives(except in cases where its employment elicits uncontrollable bouts of loud and mirthful laughter).
ETYMOLOGY: Latin : ad, to + hominem, accusative of hom, man.
OTHER FORMS: ad homi.nem —ADVERB

You win again. But consider for the sake of liberal fairness and compassion, that Goldberg’s true reason for writing this book is to bring him closer to fulfillment of a secret erotic fantasy of having kinky sex with Ann Coulter. You can't in all decency try to discredit him for that. And think also of the delight he might bring you in your imagining, as she an he strap on their black leather and flex and snap their whips, he suggests to her in a smug and dominating tone, "This time I get to be the girl, considering I have bigger tits than you do."

[nobozos]

Jonah Goldberg is not a stupid man. He's a witty writer, sometimes humbly self-effacing, and on rare occasions offers up original wisdom. But intelligence is second to good judgement born from experience and principles, and Jonah was raised with a selfish elitest world view he seems unable or unwilling to outgrow.
His national reputation was gained by happenstance when his predatory mother gave him tapes of private phone conversations between Monica Lewinsky and Linda Tripp. Milking that cow to the last drop, he was actually quite candid admitting his thrill at becoming an overnight media darling on no merit other than being a sneaky eavesdropper.
In 2006 after years as a vocal proponent for war, an easy position with no personal risk or sacrifice to himself or his loved ones, Jonah sought to shore up his pundit rep by admitting Iraq was a mishandled mess (well, sort of).
What he wrote was "I must confess, one of the things that made me reluctant to conclude that the Iraq war was a mistake was my distaste for the shabbiness of the arguments on the anti-war side." The whole world knew the White House lied about everything, but Jonah was reluctant to toss away his pom-poms because the anti-war folks are lousy at debating?
More telling was his opening sentence, showing he truly doesn't understand liberal minds when he wrote "In other words, their objection isn't to war per se, it's to wars that advance U.S. interests." (Gee, am I a commie?)
Actually, my objection IS to "war per se" and especially "pre-emptive" war predicated on a pack of lies by greedy sociopaths.
Even more strongly I believe NOTHING we have done in Iraq has been in this country's best interest.
But to the issue of the book. I'm a liberal like my mother and grandmother because I'd be ashamed of myself if I was not.
There is no such thing as a liberal fascist. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs a dictionary.

[retarius]

I forgot to add the smarmy David Brooks to the list of people who should be waterboarded.

[Trittydi]

Well irritated maybe -

. . . but it takes a conservative to work up the brand of out-of-control personal anger Goldberg has to deal with. Repiglicans are just beside themselves with the need to infuriate others, because they themselves are infuriated. They just don't understand that liberals are different.

NO ONE does irrational rage like a repiglican.

So sad.
*

[DavidNYC]

The most damning thing of all? He takes after his mother.

[Cid]

Up is Down?
Black is White?
Right is Wrong?
Life is Death?...h­mm....then long live Jonah!
.

[MajorKong]

Yep, Hitler was a liberal. That's why he killed all those communists, socialists, trade unionists and homosexuals.

[dutchess2]

With all due respect...

Everyone knows who and what Jonah Goldberg is.

His book and any comment about it are beneath
our time and attention.

He and his mom had their 15 minutes... its over. They are over.

[LeoMarvin]

Damn, that's good.

[leftbehind2000]

"(One advantage Goldberg has over Coulter? His tits are real.)"

The funniest line of an absolutely hillarious blog.

Attacking the "wisdom" of Goldberg is like shooting fish in a barrel, but Chris, you managed to annihilate the entire barrel. Thanks for making my day.

[nonbeliever]

I feel sorry for Jonah. He wants to be something he is not......someone with something to say.

[Richter]

You give Jonah too much credit. He isn't even interested in pissing off liuberals. He's just interested in making money from that pathetic crowd of resentful white males in their late twenties to early forties who are gradually realizing that they are failures in life and have to blame it on someone other than themselves, and so blame blacks and women and liberals and Latins -- and spend a great deal of their limited disposable income on books like this that give their bigotry the respectability of a hard cover.

[Rumplestiltskin]

Great review. Succinct, smart, lively, and chock full of facts. You go girl.