What Needs To Be Said

Okay, there's been lots of talk about Jonah Goldberg's new book, Liberal Facism.

I just finished listening to Goldberg's interview with Will Wilkinson over at Bloggingheads.tv. And oh, sweet merciful Jesus, what a waste of time. But, that's the sort of sacrifice that I am willing to go through for you, Faithful Reader. And, after listening to Goldberg blather on and on (and on, and on), I feel fairly safe in saying that there are, undoubtedly, an absolute ton of facts in the book. Goldberg is certainly well-educated, and knows lots of historical stuff.

But knowing lots of historical stuff is not knowing history, and Goldberg makes a nearly uncountable number of complete non sequiturs just during this one hour discussion with a very friendly interlocutor. I have no clue how many he might make during the course of the actual book. I don't have the intestinal fortitude to go back and re-listen to the interview in order to put together a link to one of the many examples, so you'll either have to take my word for it or listen to it yourself. I certainly have no intention of buying the book after listening to Goldberg's defense of it.

Look, it's not really surprising that a book with a name like Liberal Facism ought not to be taken seriously, and it's rather comical that Goldberg has been taking so much offense at the way that nobody from across the aisle is, well, taking his book seriously. For what it's worth, after listening to both of them get interviewed on bhTV, I think that Ramesh Ponnuru actually had a fairly reasonable argument to make when he wrote The Party of Death.

Still, if you want your book to be taken seriously, you ought not to give it a title so blatantly meant to do nothing more than inflame emotions. Emotional readers are kind of the opposite of rational debaters. So, although I think I would probably learn something and be forced to think quite a bit about something from reading Ponnuru's text, I can't do it. I can't reward that sort of behavior.

I don't read Michael Moore's books, I don't read Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot, and I'm sure as hell not going to read crap written for the red-meat lovers on the other side of the political debate.