Jonah Goldberg Concedes a Point

In National Review Online, Jonah Goldberg reviewed a review of his new book, "Liberal Fascism." The title alone is enough to make me not want to read it, and since I have not read it, I will not discuss it here (not that that would discourage, say, Ann Coulter from doing so, but I have standards).

But while I won't discuss the book, I will discuss one little revealing point of Goldberg's so-called review, which is actually a protracted pout. Conservatives have become surprisingly good at pouting recently: and they'd better get used to it, because it looks like they're going to be doing a lot of it in the next few years.

David Neiwert, begins his review of "Liberal Fascism" by writing:

The public understanding of World War II history and its precedents has suffered in recent years from the depredations of revisionist historians -- the David Irvings and David Bowmans of the field who have attempted to recast the meaning of, respectively, the Holocaust and the Japanese American internment. Their reach, however, has been somewhat limited to fringe audiences.

It might be tempting to throw Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning into those same cloacal backwaters, but there is an essential difference that goes well beyond the likely much broader reach of Goldberg's book, which was inexplicably published by a mainstream house (Doubleday). Most revisionists are actually historians with some credentials, and their theses often hinge on nuances and the interpretation of details.

Goldberg, who has no credentials beyond the right-wing nepotism that has enabled his career as a pundit, has drawn a kind of history in absurdly broad and comically wrongheaded strokes. It is not just history done badly, or mere revisionism. It’s a caricature of reality, like something from a comic-book alternative universe: Bizarro history.

Sounds plausible, doesn't it? Especially the part about Goldberg owing his position as a so-called pundit to right-wing nepotism (Goldberg, for those of you lucky bastards who slept through the 90s, is the son of Lucianne Goldberg, the scummy bitch who talked Linda Tripp into taping her conversations with Monica Lewinsky).

And what is Goldberg's riposte to this opening?

First, there’s the opening where he tries ever so slightly to tag me as a member of the David Irving Holocaust-denier camp. Then, [sic] he whines that I don’t have any credentials and I have no qualifications other than “right-wing nepotism” (You can expect this bleat to get ever louder, by the way, if the book becomes a bestseller). I like that, because it seems it’s only right-wing nepotism that bothers the party poised to nominate the wife of the last Democratic president, a party which remains a cargo cult to the Kennedys — every member of whom (save for pro-Nazi papa Joe) got where they are from nepotism (as for the charge I'm the product of nepotism: Yawn).

Interesting rebuttal, isn't it? It's actually what they used to call, back in the days of Watergate, a non-denial denial.

Let's break it down, shall we?

• First, there’s the opening where he tries ever so slightly to tag me as a member of the David Irving Holocaust-denier camp.

Actually, Neiwert does no such thing: he does something far more amusing, which Goldberg doesn't seem to appreciate: he claims that, as scummy as such Holocaust deniers as David Irving might be, Goldberg is even worse, since at least Irving has at least some credentials as a historian while Goldberg has none.

• Then, he whines that I don’t have any credentials and I have no qualifications other than “right-wing nepotism” (You can expect this bleat to get ever louder, by the way, if the book becomes a bestseller).

Somehow I don't get the feeling that it's Neiwert who's doing the whining here: he's merely stating a fact (we'll get back to this in a minute). As for the book's becoming a bestseller, well, while I would have to agree that stranger things have happened, I somehow doubt that "Liberal Fascism" will be topping the New York Times bestseller list any time soon.

• I like that, because it seems it’s only right-wing nepotism that bothers the party poised to nominate the wife of the last Democratic president, a party which remains a cargo cult to the Kennedys — every member of whom (save for pro-Nazi papa Joe) got where they are from nepotism (as for the charge I'm the product of nepotism: Yawn).

Seriously -- could you stuff more crap into one poorly-written, run-on sentence?

Are we going to have to break this down even further? I think we pretty much have to if we're going to do justice to this sentence in all its gaudy glory.

• I like that, because it seems it’s only right-wing nepotism that bothers the party poised to nominate the wife of the last Democratic president...

Earth to Goldberg: it's not nepotism if they vote for you. The party is not poised to do anything. And Hillary Clinton has so far won exactly one primary -- and that primary was not won by much, either. Her winning margin was something like 3%: hardly a landslide.

• ...a party which remains a cargo cult to the Kennedys — every member of whom (save for pro-Nazi papa Joe) got where they are from nepotism...

A cargo cult? For those of you who don't know what a cargo cult is (and up until five seconds ago that included me), here's a helpful definition courtesy of Wikipedia:

A cargo cult is any of a group of religious movements appearing in tribal societies in the wake of interaction with technologically-advanced, non-native cultures—which focus upon obtaining the material wealth of the advanced culture through magical thinking as well as religious rituals and practices—while believing that the materials were intended for them by their deities and ancestors.

Is the Democratic Party a "cargo cult" of the Kennedys? Especially given the fact that a member of that family has not been on a presidential ticket in 48 years (36 if you include in-laws)? This ploy only makes sense if you realize that, when a conservative gets desperate in an argument, they will invariably reach for the Kennedys. And as for "papa Joe" being pro-Nazi, that's just bullshit, which anyone who can read history realizes. I'm surprised that, given the level of Goldberg's desperation at this point, he didn't throw in Chappaquiddick.

• ...(as for the charge I'm the product of nepotism: Yawn).

Feigning tedium, as anyone who has posted on Usenet will tell you, is always the sign that someone is losing an argument -- but that's not the important point to be made here.

The important point is that Goldberg concedes the point. He doesn't argue that he's not a product of right-wing nepotism, because he can't. So he concedes the point and tries to disguise the fact by claiming that it's just too-too boring to talk about.

It may be boring -- to Goldberg, anyway. But it's a fact. Which even he can't deny.

Tom Moran