Ninotchka, on her arrival at the train station, updating her fellow countrymen about latest news in Moscow: "The last mass trials were a success: there will be fewer, but better Russians."
We can't say if Jonah Goldberg woke up wearing last night's dress, but, almost undoubtedly, he'd be happy emerging from his slumber if there were "fewer, but better, liberals".
That's right, fascism isn't a rightwing conservatism religion, it's a behavior of the Liberal Left, so we can blame the Liberals for all the world's ills.
This might all play out fantastically in Goldberg's head, but, funny thing, and we're not sure if anyone hipped Goldberg to it, but when you write, and publish, a book, people read it ... And, unless you're rock-solid accurate, people then diss you ...
And dissing is what is, so appropriately, following Goldberg around on his tour.
One major problem with the book is that Goldberg has no ability whatsoever to stick to a coherent line of argument. You might call this book "disparate essays about fascism and American liberalism designed to annoy liberals."
Beyond specific errors, lapses in logic, etc. the biggest problem with Goldberg's book is actually that Goldberg himself has the wrong ideology. A certain strand of libertarian, perhaps Justin Raimondo from AntiWar.com, could have credibly written a book with the form of argument "today's liberals rightly identify fascistic strands in contemporary conservatism, but ignore the fascist mote in their own eye" and deliver a diatribe against statism in general and seek to tar everyone, left and right, with lax deployment of the brush of fascism. But that's not Jonah Goldberg. Goldberg is, instead, a loyal foot soldier in the Republican Noise Machine. He's a steadfast supporter of the political party representing the dominant ethnocultural group in the United States, the party that supports torture and unlimited surveillance, the party that supports a larger and more aggressively employed military, the party that supports a more punitive criminal justice system at home, the party whose backers are prone to fretting about low birthrates, the need to police gender roles more rigidly, etc."
Goldberg even ventured onto the set of The Daily Show, to which Jon Stewart lamented"I don’t know what you’re saying", and “How is organic food fascist?” and “I must say you totally misrepresent what progressive means.”
Most touchy moment for Jonah came when Stewart asked him if one of the things he was against was people throwing around the charge "fascism" far too easily. Jonah said yes, then Stewart picked up a copy of the book and simply pointed to the title, "Liberal Fascism" -- adding, so why are you doing this?
There's a great interview (with Goldberg splaying all over the place) by Salon's Alex Koppelman ("We're all fascists now");
In the book, Goldberg attempts to convince readers that six decades of conventional wisdom that have placed Italy's Benito Mussolini, Germany's Adolf Hitler and fascism on the right side of the ideological spectrum are wrong, and that fascism is really a phenomenon of the left. Goldberg also attributes fascist rhetoric and tactics to Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and describes the New Deal's descendants, modern American liberals, as carriers of this liberal-fascist DNA. In a sense, "We're All Fascists Now," as Goldberg puts it in one of his chapter titles.
Either Jonah Goldberg is putting on a new production of the Producers or his latest book is a cry for help from a fractured and disoriented mind.
Titled... wait for it... Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning, it is a retelling of history through the lens of propaganda.
What Goldberg has authored can be seen only in one of two ways. It is either propaganda, purchased by a sponsor and authored by a writer whose writing is at best tepid and inaccurate (How else is Goldberg supposed to make a living as a writer if not authoring propaganda then?), or it is a defense mechanism of guilty mind, struggling to balance out its own views in the context of history.
There is also a third possible interpretation of this bizarre effort. Goldberg could indeed be hoping to stage his own version of the Producers and this latest literary example is nothing more than parody. I think we should also start betting on just how many charlatans and morons come running forward to proclaim Goldberg's fiction as a historically accurate masterpiece, courageous for its honesty even.
I like Larisa's "purchased by a sponsor" theory, for the timing of Goldberg, and his book, seems a tad conspicuous, this, 2008, being a presidential election year.
With the very steeped fascist qualities of the Bush Grindhouse, a roster of GOP candidates goose-stepping their way through the campaign, promising to carry on, and the likelihood of an historic - and liberal - Democratic candidate that they will have to mount up against, time to begin blurring and obfuscating the lines.
Perhaps Goldberg, and his book, are the first pull of the starter cord of the vaunted RNC/GOP Smear Machine. The feeding tube has been affixed and it's time to start dropping in the gruel.
Jonah Goldberg's book has no importance at all from a scholarly point of view, but the Jonah Goldberg phenomenon is extremely important. He's the most recent of a long string of Movement Republican mouthpieces who have gained places in the legit media, and he's put a few new tweaks into the formula. Unlike Coulter, Malkin, Limbaugh, Savage, and Beck, Goldberg speaks in a nice NPR voice and has a professorial manner, and while what he says is no more than cheap taunting, the way that he says it seems scholarly. So responding effectively to him will be tricky.
Goldberg's book is also intended to inoculate Republicans against the charge of fascism -- "We're no worse than the Democrats" is the standard Republican response whenever they're caught behaving indefensibly. Goldberg doesn't really need to make his case: he just needs to plant a few doubts and give the Republican mouthpieces some new talking points. Even if his book is mostly rejected, there will be some residue, the way accusations tarnish reputations at the unconscious level even when presented from the beginning as false (e.g., "Obama has never been a Muslim and has never attended a Muslim school).
I expect the rest of the media will disgrace themselves by treating him as a reasonable man making a reasonable argument, and that in itself should be enough to tell us what desperate shape our country is in.
I'm half-surprised the Cable News networks haven't tossed their 24/7 political coverage aside to run hours of loops of the same footage of Britney, accompanied by a parade of Tinsel Town talking heads - the B-Journalists - who, in truth, are very much part of Britney's problems and, exponentially, increase the coverage by running the loops of Anna Nicole Smith, rehashing her sad life and the parallels to Britney ...
Too bad this isn't a Sweeps Month, or that may very well have come to fruition.
Now, it's time to kick back and wait for the other shoe to drop ... Paris Hilton, complaining that no one has written her obituary yet, or worse, as with her singing, she's going to do it herself ...
Of all the inspiring icons - FDR, JFK, MLK, RFK, and many more - Barack Obama is turning to this guy?
"I don’t want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what’s different are the times. I do think that for example the 1980 was different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.
Jeekers Frost! ... If this is what is in his bag of hope, a Reagan-style doctrine, a "Brunch in America" (we don't want to copy and steal Reagan's "Morning" thing), heaven help us if he actually moves forward with the nomination ...
No, Ronald Reagan didn't appeal to people's optimism, he appealed to their petty, small minded bigotry and selfishness. Jimmy Carter told people to tighten their energy belts and act for the good of the country; Ronald Reagan told them they could guzzle gas with impunity and do whatever the hell they wanted. He kicked off his 1980 campaign talking about "state's rights" in Philadelphia, Mississippi -- the site of the murder of three civil rights workers in 1964's Freedom Summer. He thus put up a welcome sign for "Reagan Democrats," peeling off white voters who were unhappy with the multi-ethnic coalition within the Democratic Party.
One of his first acts was to fire 11,000 air traffic controllers in 1981 -- one of the most devastating union busting moves of the past century. And his vision of deregulation didn't free the country up for entrepreneurship, it opened it up for the wholesale thievery of the savings & loan crisis. He popularized the notion that all government is bad government and in eight short years put in place the architecture for decades of GOP graft and corruption.
There's enough hagiography of Reagan on the right, I don't think Democrats really need to go there."
Why on earth would a leading Democrat, running for President, choose Reagan as a model to emulate? Hamsher is dead-on about not needing to go there.
Astounding isn’t it? Yep, let’s put the guy who brought us “Iran-Contra, “Star Wars,” and “the largest deficits then ever known” up on a pedestal and claim he transformed this nation with “clarity” and “optimism.”
Hmmm ... Has Obama's staff checked him, perhaps there's been a recent head injury ...
"There's a reason their movement has developed this ridiculous St. Ronnie hagiography --- it's to inextricably associate their dark, divisive ideology with his carefully manufactured cheerful persona. It protects their movement from the harmful consequences of their wrecking ball policies. "We're not like those losers --- we're the party of Reagan, the sunny, optimistic, winner everybody loved! Look, here's our new Reagan! Vote for him!" (Check this scary thing out. And this from the man who said bipartisanship is date rape.)
I get that Obama is signaling that he sees this election as a game changing election like 1980. And he may very well be right about that. I hope so. But it's disconcerting to hear him casually recount these Republican arguments without a clear disclaimer, as if it's a matter of fact not opinion.
Reagan ran explicitly against the left (and in the process normalized the kind of indecent talk that made Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter millionaires.) Because he won big in 1984, leaders in both parties accepted this omnipotent Reagan myth and have run against liberalism ever since --- and have ended up, through both commission and omission, advancing the destructive conservative policies that brought us to a place where we are debating things like torture. It would be helpful if ending the era of Democrats running against the liberal base could be part of this new progressive "trajectory."
Those excesses, of course, were feminism, the consumer rights movement, the civil rights movement, the environmental movement, and the antiwar movement. The libertarian anti-government ideology of an unaccountable large liberal government was designed by ideological conservatives to take advantage of the backlash against these 'excesses'.
Stoller continues;
"I don't know. But if you think, as Obama does, that Reagan's rise to power was premised on a sunny optimism in contrast to an out of control government and a society rife with liberal excess, then you don't understand the conservative movement. Reagan tapped into greed and fear and tribalism, and those are powerful forces. Ignoring that isn't going to make them go away.
To bad this didn't come out before the debate Tuesday evening ... It may have made the debate interesting ...
It's understandable for Obama to want to put down Bill Clinton, for he is running against both of the Clintons' (and dissing Nixon is a gimme). However, if this is more about wrapping his arms around Reagan, and he sees the movement he's building as a "Reaganesque" one, than, this might be the time to actually listen to The Gipper's old lady, modifying her legendary clarion call into a mournful, plaintive "Just Say Oh No"!
I couldn't escape it. Feeling under-the-weather, it crept up on me as I anchored the sofa, unable to move, to reach the remote control, before it was too late.
It, and those of us watching, were on the sad, dour, lifeless train ...
And it had the additional touch of Allen, with NBC's Natalie Morales standing, singularly, off to the side, reading emailed questions, almost in the role as the narrator of a Greek Tragedy.
Or comedy, for the fat-mouthed man from Buffalo was at center stage ... Always at center stage ... Never wavering or giving up his position of center stage ...
I thought it was going to be a debate, but with Brian Williams, and Tim Russert, listed in the role of moderators, it played out more like the pair emulating a couple of high school sophomore journalism students trying to goof on the upperclassman.
This one laid out so badly, I believe Leonard Pinth Garnell wouldn't have wasted his time or energy panning it.
About 22 minutes into the Nevada Democratic debate, a heckler in the audience interrupted the proceedings, saying “these are f**cking race-based questions coming from you two, these are race-based questions…”
There was silence from the candidates and the moderators for about eight seconds with no mention of the heckler. Tim Russert, continued with his question for Sen. Hillary Clinton which focused on her characterization that Sen. Obama “is raising false hopes.”
I’ve seen debates in which hecklers jeer candidates, and I’ve seen debates in which hecklers take a stand for one issue or another, but this was the first debate I’ve seen in which a heckler went after a moderator. Worse, I think the guy was probably right.
* Moderator Brian Williams spoke for all of us sleep-deprived and travel weary journalists when he welcomed the audience back to Los Angeles. He was greeted with lusty booing from the Las Vegas crowd.
And, of course, Little Timmy Russert had to play his usual games, during a round of questioning about the positions on Iraq, in which all three candidates were in basic agreement to pull the troops out during the first year, with some subtle differences.
But Little Timmy didn't like those answers. Little Timmy got a little angry with the candidates and had to let them know that he was a little angry with them, contemptuously and dismissively snipping at them, complete with shaking head and enlarged eyeballs;
RUSSERT: In September, we were in New Hampshire together, and I asked the three of you if you would pledge to have all troops out of Iraq by the end of your first term.
All three of you said, you will not take that pledge. I'm hearing something much different tonight.
If you didn't watch last night, you didn't miss very much. The more informal stage setting - all three sitting around a table, mere feet from each other - was different, however, it offered, very much, more articulated stump speeches. None of the three erred to any great extent and none really scored points on each other.
It was, as we started this post, the Woody Allen train, a dull and uneventful evening.
If it's Tuesday in Las Vegas, it's Meet Timmy and Brian making asses of themselves (and, as I am writing this post, I hear a promo from MSNBC, that this dynamic-less duo will be hosting and moderating an upcoming Republican debate in Florida ... Egads!)
The Hillary Clinton Team must be like a glowing orb, the bright light that draws in the nitwit moths ... Or maybe, like in 'Time Bandits', she's "the most fabulous object in the world".
Because Obama hasn't spoken up, or perhaps launched a Bill O'Reilly-like crusade, against the magazine published by the church where he worships (published by the daughter of the minister, just to give you another degree, or two, of separation), for their endorsement of Louis Farrakhan, Obama isn't fit to become President.
And, of course, Cohen does it with his "I'm not accusing Obama of anything ... But ..." chickenshit;
It's important to state right off that nothing in Obama's record suggests he harbors anti-Semitic views or agrees with Wright when it comes to Farrakhan. Instead, as Obama's top campaign aide, David Axelrod, points out, Obama often has said that he and his minister sometimes disagree. Farrakhan, Axelrod told me, is one of those instances.
Fine. But where I differ with Axelrod and, I assume, Obama is that praise for an anti-Semitic demagogue is not a minor difference or an intrachurch issue. The Obama camp takes the view that its candidate, now that he has been told about the award, is under no obligation to speak out on the Farrakhan matter. It was not Obama's church that made the award but a magazine. This is a distinction without much of a difference. And given who the parishioner is, the obligation to speak out is all the greater. He could be the next American president. Where is his sense of outrage?
The Clinton Camp is, likely, a little upset, that Cohen didn't dredge up the Al Qaeda Terrorist Childhood Education that was an early smear attempt on Obama, or speculate, if elected, Obama will take his oath using the Koran, but, give Cohen the credit for going for the reach, to place Obama standing next to Farrakhan (and, I'm a little surprise Cohen didn't have the WaPo Graphics Dept. work-up a couple of life-size cardboard cutouts of the two standing together);
And yet Wright heaped praise on Farrakhan. According to Trumpet, he applauded his "depth of analysis when it comes to the racial ills of this nation." He praised "his integrity and honesty." He called him "an unforgettable force, a catalyst for change and a religious leader who is sincere about his faith and his purpose." These are the words of a man who prayed with Obama just before the Illinois senator announced his run for the presidency. Will he pray with him just before his inaugural?
And, Cohen echoes, picks up the baton, on Hillary's "voting present" hit job;
I don't for a moment think that Obama shares Wright's views on Farrakhan. But the rap on Obama is that he is a fog of a man. We know little about him, and, for all my admiration of him, I wonder about his mettle. The New York Times recently reported on Obama's penchant while serving in the Illinois legislature for merely voting "present" when faced with some tough issues. Farrakhan, in a strictly political sense, may be a tough issue for him. This time, though, "present" will not do.
Being that Hillary still can't stumble her way out her clumsy attempt to paint Obama as weak, via her invoking the legacy of Dr. King (she's now claiming Obama is the one who distorted what she said), Cohen attempts to go at it in the other direction, to tying Obama to Farrakhan.
Richard, listen up ... We're going to tell you again ... Are you listening? ... Can you hear me now?
Pull your head out of your ass!
Or, actually, if all you're going to do is smearing and hack jobs, maybe you should keep it tucked up there
I got hip to this yesterday, after 2-hours of clearing eight-inches of snow.
Looking to chill out, I received an email from my brother, with the full article copied into it and, as he indicated in his message, I did find it to be a "fun read".
Titled "Do you have a favorite drunkard?", Richard English turns out a most energetic and thoroughly entertaining piece on Andre The Giant, and his voracious (and believe me, that is an understatement) alcohol consumption.
Here's a few caveats ...
Another time, in the '70s, Andre was holding court at a beach-front bar in the Carolinas, boozing it up with fellow wrestlers Blackjack Mulligan, Dick Murdoch, and the inimitable Ric Flair. They'd been drinking with gusto for hours when Flair goaded Mulligan and Murdoch into some slap-boxing with Andre, who had poured over 60 beers down his gullet. One of the two "accidentally" sucker-punched Andre. The Giant became enraged, grabbed both Mulligan (6'5", 250 lbs.) and Murdoch (6'3", 240 lbs.) and dragged them into the ocean, one in each hand, where he proceeded to hold them under water. Flair intervened, and Andre released the men, assuring them he was only playing around. Murdoch and Mulligan, who had nearly drowned, weren't so sure, but neither messed with Andre the Giant again. They also picked up the tab.
You won't find it in the Guinness Book of World Records, but Andre the Giant holds the world record for the largest number of beers consumed in a single sitting. These were standard 12-ounce bottles of beer, nothing fancy, but during a six-hour period Andre drank 119 of them. It was one of the few times Andre got drunk enough to pass out, which he did in a hallway at his hotel. His companions, quite drunk themselves, couldn't move the big man. Fearing trouble with cops, they stole a piano cover from the lounge and draped it over Andre's inert form. He slept peacefully until morning, unmolested by anyone. Perhaps the hotel people thought he was a piece of furniture.
"It's not about Tony," Owens said. "You guys can point fingers at him and talk about the vacation, but if you do that, it's really unfair ..."
His lips quivered and voice cracked. The tears were visible from behind the sunglasses.
"It's unfair," Owens added. "It's my teammate, my quarterback. If you do that, man, it's unfair. We lost as a team. We lost as a team.
"It's unfair because I've been through it. I know what it's like. He gives you his all every day. When you lose, it falls on the quarterback's shoulders. But let it fall on the whole team's shoulders."
With the NFL playoffs continuing into the Championship round next weekend, followed by the Super Bowl in early February, Penn indicated he hasn't ruled out bring in more "criers", based on the results of the remaining games.
"We feel good," said Penn. "The gloves are off and Hillary is speaking in her own voice for the rest of the campaign."
Just catching up on some housekeeping business with this post today.
After the week we had here at The Garlic, we are late with our annual offering, our lazy attempt at a "year-in-review" kind of thing ... Rather than toil for days, piecing together a cleverly-laid-out narrative, tying in all the major (and minor) happenings, with a pithy edge, and esoteric cultural references, we throw on the leisure suit and sneakers via, what else, a list of links!
Monitored by the esteemed firm of Dewey, Cheethem and Howe, we cull from our site traffic, RSS Feeder traffic, links, rumors, WOM, random phone calls and emails, and a guy named "Randy" from Baltimore, to come up with the most popular offerings on The Garlic this past year.
So, have at it, and if you see something you like, spread it around ...
Top Most Read/Popular Garlic Posts of 2007
Honorable Mentions (Or, an official-sounding way to squeeze in three additional posts)
He's like the guy walking around with toilet paper stuck to his shoe ... Or maybe his fly is down ... Or the last to know that his wife is cheating on him ...
And the hosts in the various countries lay it all out, give him the star treatment, but more-so, in-the-know, treating him like the uncle or grandfather who is traveling on the road to Dementia ...
"The official Arab view of Bush was summed up inadvertently by a diplomat from a major Arab state, who indicated disbelief that the president will use the trip to renew his drive for Middle East democracy.
"Is that still on?" the Arab official replied sarcastically. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities.
