Over at the Liberal Fascism blog, where intellectual self-respect lies dead in a shallow grave well manured with obsequious e-mails, the ghastly, mournful parade of pathetic correspondence slogs on through the mud and the dung:
I've finally figured out what I find so unsatisfying about the complaints of Tomasky and others. It seems to me that the standard practice when reviewing a book that is allegedly derivative or unnecessary is to recommend the acknowledged authoritative book on the subject. Funny that in all the reviews I've read of LF I haven't seen a single one that suggested an alternative book to read on the subject of Progressivism and fascism. To me that says that those amongst the left who do know about this history don't want it talked about.
Uh, I believe I can clear up this poor little lamb's confusion.
There is no "authoritative book" on the "subject" of "Progressivism and fascism" for the same reason there are no "authoritative books" on the "subjects" of Huguenots and Japanese cuisine, nationalism in India and ice hockey, or paganism and the Manhattan Project. Namely, such "subjects" don't fucking exist and it would be tendentious to suggest more than an analogical relationship between the two phenomena.
Christ, you'd think that someone who'd read a negative review of the book would have picked up on this, since Goldberg's weaseling on precisely this point is, you know, precisely why the reviews are in fact negative in the first place.