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

[TomR]

He's on to us boys. He's cracked the liberal code I tell ya. Unscramble his carefully worded book title and our secret message, the screed we all live by, comes out:

[A fib riles clams.]

That's right. We liberals have long known this fact and have used it for decades to taunt unsuspecting mollusks from around the world.

First Falwell discovered the secret of Tinky Winky. Now they've cracked Sponge Bob's subliminal messaging to children. I guess it's back to the drawing board for us liberals.

Curse you Jonah Goldberg!!!
**shaking fist in air**

- Tom

[Openeyes]

Great post. You are exactly correct, it is opposite world. I keep thinking I'm waking up in Kafka-land where everything that conservatives accuse Dems of doing is exactly what they are doing instead! Mussolini was on the left?? Bush has far more in common with Il Duce then Goldberg apparently is capable of realizing.

Fascism is a RIGHT WING version of extremism. It is corporatism, where the state protects the corporation, not the individual as oppossed to communism, where the state protects itself, rather than the individual, or our country where we protect the individual rather than the state or corporations (back in the good old days when the constitution meant something).

Mussolini is a far better model for a Bush administration than a "liberal" one, but of course, that deduction means rationally evaluating facts to reach a supportable conclusion - something that is well beyond Goldberg's limited mental skills.

[OldSchoolLiberal]

Hi Chris,
I suppose you are not aware of the serious place National Review has in American politcial history.

William F. Buckley, who has written lots of things to disagree with, drew a firm line on his pages which could not be crossed. He threw out all of the Birchers and other racialists and refused to tolerate any open racism on his pages. This was all at a time when such a thing was not just important and courageous. NR redefined conservative politics and gutted the whackos just as the left needs to do now.

That`s a bit harder than telling fat jokes or trying to make a cartoon out of someone you thinks makes people into cartoons. In fact it is part of the American political story that gets us to Barack Obama taking the stage.

[realpolitic]

In the marketplace of ideas, Goldberg's do not even amount to a garage sale. They are someone's leftover furniture sitting on the curb after he has been evicted. By the way, is not this the same Jonah Goldberg who tried to popularize an "Islamic Fascism Awareness Week" to spread his particular brand of vitriol? He is the same Jonah Goldberg who argued Iraq needed an Augusto Pinochet to bring stability to the war torn country. In fact, he stated that "Pinochet's abuses helped create a civil society." As part of his revisionist history, he has defended colonialism in Africa. Those on the far right who tag others with the fascist label probably realize how close this label hits to home. He is the male version of Ann Coulter. These kinds of tomes are caricatures of themselves.

[bartonfink]

look, nothing can be done about idiots like jonah goldberg. he preaches to the same pre-converted crowd as his cohorts coulter, d'souza et al ad nauseam. he won't change a single mind about anything. luckily for us, he's sets himself up to be a moronic punching bag for heroes like chris kelly. that's all we can really ask for, isn't it?

[Beolarry]

The perfect companion book to "Liberal Fascist" is Wall Street Journal columnist Amity Shlaes "Forgotten Man: The New History of the Great Depression," in which she excoriates FDR for importing socialism to the United States through the conscession of social security to the American working man.

[CatfishJohn]

Jonah Goldbergs painfully sophomoric ramblings have just startred to appear locally here in the Baltimore Sun. He reads like bigot Joseph Sobran without the paranoia, Bob Novak without the sharp intellect, cal thomas without the hypocritical sermonizing..... reminiscent of the kind of bright but not really too smart conservative young republican type who says things that are so demonstrably wrong and painfully inaccurate in order to promulgate his worldview that he is himself a walking cliche of the often embarassing lack of intellectual sophistication that epitomizes virtually all younger conservatives.

[TRYKER]

You're too good Chris. I'm glad I have a Huffpo reminder when you post something new.
Reading you is like going dancing, cute little twirls and pretty little steps, great music and smiles erupting over and over.
Fun stuff.
Plus you unmask the bad actor. Way to go.

[cobraxus]

but will there be time for him to plug his book on Tucker Carlson(the show,not the guy)before MSNBC sinks that boat for good.

[DenverCurmudgeon]

Don't forget that Jonah's mama was Lucianne Goldberg: Monica Lewinsky's "adviser", self- claimed mistress of Lyndon Johnson, self-claimed sex partner of Hubert Humphrey, and life long Repug dirty tricks operative.

[jbeach]

Actually I think the fat jokes are awesome, and quite to the point: that's the level of dialogue that Goldberg is entering into here, just on a political level. "Nazi" is equivalent to "Fatty fatty fat fat!" in Goldberg's world; all those facts about what Nazism and fascism actually means and comes from are less important than name-calling.

[cognate]

The true dichotomy is not between Liberal and Conservative, nor between Left and Right, but between Statism and Liberty - liberty from the tyranny of government, that is. Liberals want the government to butt out of their bedrooms, but demand that it regulate the economy and offer free healthcare, among other imaginary goodies. Conservatives worship at the altar of government-dictated morals, and think it should prop up business by subsidies, tariffs, and erecting barriers to competition. Both sides want jack-booted soldiers squashing enemies wherever they may be.

Add to this that both groups, once in power, habitually renege on their promises.

I know the distinction is lost on many people, but Ron Paul understands it well.

[HLM]

Ann Coulter has tits??

[Kansas Evans]

How is Woodrow Wilson some special representative of liberalism? He was racist.

[gregapress]

Who the hell is Jonah Goldberg and why should anyone care what the hell he thinks?