Jonah Goldberg's 'Liberal Facism' Brings Historical Revisionism to Comical New Heights

By Brad Reed, AlterNet
Posted on January 11, 2008, Printed on January 13, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/72960/

About five years ago, I imagine that Ann Coulter, Dinesh D'Souza and Jonah Goldberg went out to a local bar and subsequently got into a drunken feud over who among them could write the most comically stupid right-wing attack book.

"I'm-a gonna write two books, one callin' libruls TRAITORS and the other one callin' 'em GODLESS," cackled a sauced Coulter while sipping down her gin and tonic.

"Pfffffft, anyone can call 'em godless traitors," said D'Souza. "I'm-a write a book that blames libruls fer 9/11"

Not one to be outdone, Goldberg pounded his Amstel Light on the table and rose to his feet.

"Tha's nothin'!" he shouted. "I'm-a write a book that calls all libruls FASCISTS!"

Coulter and D'Souza burst into laughter.

"Tha's shameless e'ev fer you!" said Coulter. "Yer own magazine used ta make a habit of praising Franco!"

"I can too write a book about librul fascism!" said an indignant Goldberg as he trudged off to the men's room. "I'll show you! I'll show you all!" And that, in my mind, is how Liberal Fascism was born.

For the uninitiated, Liberal Fascism is a new book by National Review editor Jonah Goldberg that contends that Hitler and Mussolini were committed left-wingers, and that today's liberals are fascism's natural intellectual heirs. While this may sound like yet another Coulteresque quickie aimed at prying some money out of Dittohead Nation, Goldberg insists that it is actually a Very Serious Work that "isn't like any Ann Coulter book" because it presents an argument that "has never been made in such detail or with such care. Goldberg also goes to great lengths from the start of the book to say that he's not really saying liberals are fascists, but hey, here are 400 pages of similarities between liberals and fascists, and if you start associating the two of them by the end of the book, then that's not his fault...[Open in new window]