Jonah Goldberg to Base! Under Attack by Commie-Nazis!

The reviews for Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism are awful, of course, and the new line from its author is that the critics just haven't read it hard enough. It's like the mis en scene in Hostel II. You'd get it, if you just watched a few more times.

Which made me feel bad, because I hadn't planned on reading it at all. I still have all these Michael Savage books on the nightstand.

(With the Savage books I just like staring the author photos on the covers. He looks like Al Goldstein without the panache. Odd that he has all this trouble with women.)

So I went to Borders and read Liberal Fascism.

I can't imagine what terms we're supposed to be judging it on. It's tragic.

It's not just that Goldberg's understanding of history would get him laughed out of a game of Axis & Allies; the index doesn't work.

Is it for young adults?

Here's the Goldberg Thesis:

Liberals are like Fascists because Fascists told people to do things and so do Liberals. The End.

Yeah, it's not exactly Umberto Eco.

I guess Jonah Goldberg is supposed to be a fun guy -- you don't grow up in a whorehouse without learning to play at least a little piano -- so it's okay that he's not very bright. And he's still just a kid, in Young Republican terms; he's not even forty. At his age George Bush was still driving drunk. But is that really an excuse?

When you buy it, you don't get to pay with play money.

Goldberg also notices that "Nazi" is short for "national socialist," which is scholarship on a level with discovering that there were mid-winter holidays that predated Christmas. (Religion's like a myth, dude!) It's the kind of thing stupid people think sounds smart. A grown man might sit there and listen to a boy say it, but only to humor him. "Well, that's an interesting thought, son, but Jesus was a historical figure. Now run upstairs. I've paid my $10, and I need to fuck your mom."

If you get to the end, you do, however, find the "rosebud" of the whole thing: Liberal Fascism is Jonah Goldberg's revenge on Gore Vidal for making William F. Buckley lose his temper.

Here:

"In 1968, in a televised debate on ABC news during the Chicago Democratic convention, Gore Vidal continually goaded William F. Buckley, eventually calling him a crypto Nazi. Vidal himself is an open homosexual, a pagan, a statist, and a conspiracy theorist. Buckley, a patriotic, free-market, anti-totalitarian gentlemen of impeccably good manners, could take it no more and responded: 'Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto Nazi or I'll sock you in the goddam face and you'll stay plastered.'"

This is a pretty well-known incident. (I'm not sure why "open homosexual" is the first thing Goldberg lists in Vidal's bio, except as a synonym for "asking for it," but it's his book. I might have gone with, "author, playwright, screenwriter, veteran," but that's just me.) Most viewers remember the other guy, the impeccably well-mannered patriotic gentleman speed freak dilettante footnote, getting the worst of it, as he was the one screaming slurs and threatening to hit people.

I think Vidal compared it to watching a cuckoo clock bird pop out of Buckley's head.

But that's not how Goldberg sees it.

"It was one of the of the few times in Buckley's long public life that he has abandoned civility, and he instantly regretted it. Nevertheless, being on the receiving end of many similar insults and diatribes, I have deep sympathy for Buckley's frustration. For at some point it is necessary to throw down the gauntlet, to draw a line in the sand, to set a boundary, to cry at long last, 'enough is enough,' to stand athwart 'progress' and yell 'stop.'"

(Or I'll hit you with my purse.)

"My hope is that this book has served much the same purpose as Buckley's intemperate outburst while striving for his more typical civility."

Liberal Fascism isn't about politics or history or even making a fast buck. It's about sucking up to the boss.

"Remember that night you totally lost your shit on national TV? (Probably not, you were taking a lot of speed at the time.) Well, I thought you were swell. That mean man was totally asking for it."

I'm glad you called him a queer.

--

By the way, don't look for this incident with the dozen other references to homosexuality in the index. It's not there.

--

William Buckley, when remembered at all, will be remembered for eating it that night in 1968. The way, up until now, Jonah Goldberg's claim to fame was lifting a line from The Simpsons, "cheese eating surrender monkeys," and applying it to anyone who didn't want to fight Iraq. (And by "fight" Goldberg meant, "send somebody else.")

Goldberg doesn't get many ideas. So where'd he come up with pure gold like "liberal fascism?" Wait, look:

I'm pretty sure that's The Simpsons. The line is: "McBain to base. Under attack from Commie Nazis."

I know no one gets paid for the Internet, but someone owes someone some money.

Comments

[surfcitysteven]

I, too, sat down at borders and read some of this crap. And Sean Hannity at this very moment is talking to pooper of this crap on TV. This book will do very well amongst the "Right wing idiot book of the week club" that is Fox.

[Counterglow]

So Jonah Goldberg thinks his book was panned because the reviewers didn't read it hard enough? That's like saying I have to eat a whole steak in order figure out that the meat is rotten.

[wmbear]

Goldberg doesn't get many ideas. So where'd he come up with pure gold like "liberal fascism?"

THERE ***IS*** A "FASCISM OF THE LEFT"...

So the basic idea is not totally far-fetched. This has been defined elsewhere (and by progressives themselves, of which I am one). However, the righ is much more PRONE to fascism. And you know, Vidal later regretted calling Buckley a "crypto-Na­zi." Yes. That was the wrong term for the kind of concentration of power in the hands of the executive that we see in the Bush/Cheney war crime family. What he should have called Buckley was what he in fact is -- a cryptofascist. And Vidal used the occasion to coin the word (and concept) of "cryptofas­cism." Cryptofascism is "the fascism that dare not speak its name" (speaking of admitted homosexuals) and it is the fascism that is endemic to the right wing, as we see today....

[WoodyCPM]

Vidal, describes the incident with Buckley in 1968 in his autobiography "Palmisest". After listening to Buckley describe the protesters at the Chicago Democratic Convention as being "extremists, anti-democratic, socialist, communists, fascists". Vidal said he had to speak up and stop the attacks on Americans who were expressing their grievances and fighting for their voice to be heard as guaranteed by the Constitution. He started to speak and meant to say that "You are the only fascist I see here," but couldn't think of the word "fascist" and it came out "nazi".

Jonah Goldberg is not fit to s*c* Gore Vidal's c**k.

[cobraxus]

Elvis Costello summed it up best when(25 years ago)he discussed the British Union Of Fascists and their demon hellspawn the Skinheads:"If there weren't so many ignorant people willing to fall for this you'd almost feel sorry for them."Peop­le such as Jonah Goldberg,Ann Coulter,Glenn Beck etc. are all pretty pathetic.b­ut there are some real morons out there who don't know history and can't really think for themselves so this stuff becomes dangerous.­Historical Revisionism is key to the Neo-Con Movement and if no one stands up for the truth their twisted version of history could become the only one.

[novowel4me]

Goldberg isn't the only master of a self-canceling phrase of the "liberal nazi" variety. Radio talk show host Michael Weiner (aka Michael Savage or "silly Savage") once ranted on a caller naming him a "Communist Fascist". Like Goldberg's "liberal nazi" the result is an instant Scooby-Doo moment or "did I really hear what I just heard"? Don't these people have the grace to look at dictionary or pay attention in high school history?

[antaeus]

this is one of the smartest things I've read on huffpo

[Mr.Fitz]

You would be surprised at how many young people are attracted to this kind of pulp--easy to read, easy to grasp, extreme concepts. It's almost as if they are dying for something to believe in and fight for, can't find anything to relate to, and don't want to take the time to learn how to evaluate beliefs. They are confused by history, and desire a colored glass to view it more easily. They are confused by rhetoric, and have no concept of validity or justification. They think science is the examination of billiard balls and everything else is philosophy. God help us.

[Economike]

I haven't read the book in question and from the excerpts provided it sounds like a waste of time. However I view the connection between The left and the right as a circle not a straight line. To me if someone on the left becomes too extreme they start exhibiting behavior similar to people on the extreme right.

[sarge]

One thing that will always brighten up an otherwise shitty day is an email from huffingtonpost.comonpost.com" that says "Chris Kelly just posted something new:"

[pizzmoe]

Goldberg, just another shmo that just makes shit up!

[skeptique]

Goldberg, the pride and joy of the LA Times.

[DietrichMoody]

Chris kelly, love the Cliff Notes, and I think you should be Huffington Post's OFFICIAL CLIFF NOTES writer on books by: Savage, Jonah Goldberg, Bill Oreilly, Ann Coulter, Oh yeah, and anything that comes out of the mouth of Bill Kristol, Michelle Malkin and the ever huggable lovable, throw-upable Dick Morris.

[lovethesinner]

Hitler was paid to spy on the original National Socialists and in doing his job, the wing-nuts (probably Jonah's grandparents) loved his speaking style so much they adopted him. After he rose up through the ranks he simply co-opted the name. (Remind you of anyone in this years election?) (Maybe a couple?)

Loved your style in tearing apart this little shit. In linguitic terms he's sure to understand, "he couldn't carry your jock, let alone fill it," Chris. Or, Buckleys, either. (he'd be too busy sniffing it.)

[DietrichMoody]

Chris kelly, love the Cliff Notes, and I think you should be Huffington Post's OFFICIAL CLIFF NOTES writer on books by: Savage, Jonah Goldberg, Bill Oreilly, Ann Coulter, Oh yeah, and anything that comes out of the mouth of Bill Kristol, Michelle Malkin and the ever huggable lovable, throw-upable Dick Morris.