On May 10th, Jonah Goldberg said he was going to respond to Glenn Greenwald's rebuttal to Goldberg's argument that George Bush is a liberal. We've waited longer than three days and three nights, even.
Before I go into the belly of the whale, one thing that I'm surprised that nobody has brought up in the ridiculous argument that Bush is a liberal is the fact that many are still clinging to the simplistic notion that the political spectrum is only represented by a line.
There are a few versions of dual axis diagrams, usually credited to David Nolan and popularly known through the The World's Smallest Political Quiz. My main reason for referring to this diagram of the political spectrum is to point out that both liberals and conservatives support and oppose "big government" for their own partisan reasons, and things aren't as black and white as Goldberg presents in his flawed argument to us.
Greenwald mentions how Bush uses big government in his May 7th post, a thorough rebuttal as to why he didn't think Bush is a liberal. But one of his points is really enough for me: Just because the Bush administration is blowing a lot of tax money, it doesn't mean that it is on liberal projects.
Goldberg responded with the following statement on May 10th:
MY SPAT WITH GREENWALD [Jonah Goldberg]
Veered wildy into relatively sober and substantive waters over the weekend. I've been meaning to respond to this, but I keep getting distracted by work and whatnot. The latest whatnot is a lunch appointment and then a trip to the doctor -- they're going to remove my giant possum shaped goiter today. See ya in a bit.
Update: I was kidding about the goiter. Thanks for the well-wishes, but fear not.
12:07 P.M.
While some can take this as blowing Greenwald off, he really has no high horse to get off of. After all, How Would a Pariot Act is ranked #211 on Amazon, and Liberal Fascism (sorry, trying not to laugh at the title) is #41,267 at this time. To be fair, Goldberg's book is almost a year away from print , but certainly some credence should be given to another political writer on the bestseller list for sure.
I, as well as many of you, are waiting breathlessly for Goldberg's answer. What was he so busy doing on National Review Online at the Corner?
Superman! [Jonah Goldberg]
From a reader:
Please explain to me why brian singer must ruin every major comic book movie adaption, what x-men wasn't enough? Superman comes back and Lois Lane has another man's baby?!?!?! Have you seen the latest trailer ? Its like he is trying to piss off the core group of every comic book's fan base. I predict a flop (or rather a not particular notable success-$100M), its typically the core fans and families that make a movie a blockbuster, people whose kids demand to see it several times or the hard-core fans who see several times, well unless this is superman's kid and its handled very well, this movie is dead before it arrives. I saw the trailer and instead of cool special effects making me go I must see this, I could get beyond how f-ing annoyed I was with lois lan has another man's kid part.
Me: Personally, I think the trailer looks pretty good, and I'm more forgiving of the deviations from orthodoxy in the X-Men movies. The potentional for controversy over Lois's single mom status, however, could be interesting in that Lois Lane was once iconic as the American career woman. It might be an intriguing bit of social commentary that they made her unable or unwilling to keep the father around. As for whether it was smart commercially or advisable "artistically" who knows? I'm still going to see it.
Posted at 9:39 A.M.
Re: Superman [Jonah Goldberg]
The author of that first "Superman" email follows-up: "I'm still going to see it, but am disappointed in advance. As for artistic license, if Brian really wanted controversy he would make superman black or jewish, or both. I will spare you all the If superman were black jokes."
The reader, who happens to be black, misses the real missed opportunity. What if Superman were an Arab Muslim? It would certainly put a new gloss on Jihad.
Posted at 10:27 A.M.10:27 A.M.
Junior Heathers [Jonah Goldberg]
Not sure what to make of this:
LAKEVIEW, Oregon (AP) -- A 13-year-old girl convicted of attempting to kill two classmates by slipping rat poison into their milk was sentenced to up to 12 years in a juvenile detention center.
Holley Sweeney was ordered Friday to remain at the Hillcrest Girls' School in Salem until she is 25 with early release possible if she responds to treatment, the judge ruled.
Earlier this month, the judge found the Lakeview girl and her friend, Stephanie Quesnoy, 12, guilty of plotting and executing a plan to kill two classmates they disliked.
Quesnoy is to be sentenced May 22.
The girls put d-Con rat poison in the milk of two classmates September 19 during lunch at Daly Middle School. The victims noticed green crystalline pellets in the bottom of their milk cartons and neither was injured.
District Attorney David Schutt said the girls planned the poisoning to retaliate against the victims for putting shaving cream in Quesnoy and Sweeney's hair at a slumber party.
Both girls testified that they wanted their victims dead.
Posted at 7:54 A.M.
Basset Hounds [Jonah Goldberg]
As some may recall, I am a firm believer in the transcendent nobility of the basset hound. My dearly departed basset, Norman T. Goldberg, was the finest example of the basset ever recorded (though some believe there was a superior basset in Indiana in the 1920s. This is a myth). Momma Goldberg, who also subscribes to this view, has a wonderful picture capturing the pure doggy goodness of the breed on her home page today.
Posted at 11:36 A.M.
Beam Me Up [Jonah Goldberg]
I'll wait for a working model of this before I invest.
Posted at 1:11 P.M.
Escape from Paris? [Jonah Goldberg]
This movie looks pretty frick'n cool. But it's also pretty derivative of Escape From New York, non?
Posted at 1:00 P.M.
Star Trek 2.0 [Jonah Goldberg]
Spock in the hizzy, here , here , and here.
Posted at 1:59 P.M.
Lazy Ramadi [Jonah Goldberg]
Not quite SNL quality, but given the conditions, two thumbs up.
Posted at 2:44 P.M.
And my favorite:
Timewaster [Jonah Goldberg]
Smash! Your Friday away.
Posted at 10:17 A.M.
If you go to Amazon to see what people are saying about Goldberg's new book, we see people who are questioning attacks on Goldberg's credibility:
Boy oh boy. Isn't this just so typical of a liberal. The book is not even published yet and here you are critiquing the footnotes. How pathetic. Hey Chris, why don't you wait until the book actually comes out before you start doing your sniping at it. Better yet, why don't you try to READ the book before reviewing it! Is that too much to ask?
Liberals, they're just too open minded to hear anybody else's point of view.
And a good point. It's not like Goldberg made mistakes in the past:
CORRECTION [Jonah Goldberg]
I meant to say something about this last week, when a reader called it to my attention. In my column about gas prices last week (which I can't find on the site, Chaka!) I said Iran was the second largest oil producer. It's really the fourth. I called the LA Times' attention to this and they ran a correction today, but I never corrected for you guys.
Posted at 11:39 A.M.
Or this:
MONSTROUSLY STUPID ERROR [Jonah Goldberg]
Sorry folks, while typing fast and thinking not at all, I wrote in today's G-File that the Declaration of Indepedence rather than that obscure document called "the Constitution" begins "We the People...." It was a monstrously stupid error, but an unthinking one resulting from an earlier discussion of the Declaration, I ultimately cut out before sending off the final version. Ugh. It's been changed.
Posted at 8:45 AM
Or most damning at all, from April:
STUPID, STUPID, STUPID [Jonah Goldberg]
So sorry. I was racing to catch a plane. Zod was in Superman II. Mea culpa.
Getting facts about Iran and the Constitution wrong are forgiveable mistakes for a major political author to make. But I draw the line at Superman II. Dude, careful: next thing you know, you might have to turn in your Star Trek Membership Card.
Update: I found this column(albeit cached) that Goldberg wrote way back in March, 2006:
But conservatives were willing to overlook Bush's transgressions when he was riding high in the polls. Now that he's on the ropes, they claim Bush's apostasy is to blame, even though such apostasy got him elected in the first place. Such is the seduction of political power.
Can anybody find a Goldberg quote where he uses "Bush" and "liberals" in the same sentence?