Good catch.
More about the American Prospect review, which other liberal and conservative pundits continue to cite. I agree with Digby and Hunter about its lacunae, but I think I found something even more interesting.
Earlier this year, Robert Kuttner reviewed Max Blumenthal’s Republican Gomorrah for the American Prospect.
There's a punchline:
If you’re looking for Kuttner’s article, it’s called “American Taliban” (Feb. 17, 2010).
There's an amusing line of attack, as weenie liberals get the vapors over the theme and title of my book. Their argument is two-fold -- that 1) we shouldn't say mean things about Republicans, because really 2) Republicans aren't that bad and their over-the-top rhetoric hasn't won them shit.
Both are ludicrous arguments, and I'll address them early next week. But while the American Prospect twisted themselves into pretzels patting themselves on the back over trashing my book for its harshness, here is its co-editor (i.e. head honcho), making a compatible argument.
With the complete takeover of the GOP by an American Taliban, the party should be doomed to minority status.
But think again. Despite the occasional principled libertarian such as Ron Paul, a Christian who equates the Federal Reserve with Satan, the marriage of religious fundamentalists and market fundamentalists is holding. Why? Because, in the favorite word of Church Lady, it is so convenient. The Christian far right hates big government, and so does the commercial right. It may be annoying to socially moderate financial elites that the religious right is so crazed on the subject of gays, guns, and God, but these views do not affect the business elite where it lives.
More from Tristero, Digby, Paul Rosenberg, Osborne Ink, Armando, and Peter Daou.
Tristero's piece is particularly prescient, as it speaks to one of my main motivation in writing the book:
Matt can claim as often as he likes that he is not in any real sense equating the Taliban and William Kristol and be quite sincere about it. But simply because Kos - secondhand - got him to talk about it, that is exactly what he is doing.
And that is exactly what we want the right to do as well. We want them to defend their extremism by debunking the comparison with Taliban. Talk about it in detail, please! Tell us all about the important differences between al Qaeda's homophobia and Focus on the Family's. Explain all the nuances so we understand.
And the more they explain how different they are, the more the two are rhetorically associated. And invariably, the more plausible the comparison becomes.