Oy, Jonah Goldberg, on his beautiful book:
Though the evidence is as much anecdotal as anything else, I think the book has made a lasting mark on the culture, despite the best efforts of the lefty blogs and the liberal establishment to close ranks in a concerted effort to discredit it and/or me.
Even the skidmark it has made on the culture will wash out, soon enough. But this is really rather sad -- did he entertain hopes that this book would be taken seriously, as like, a work of "scholarship"? Well, yes:
About a dozen or so professors have told me that they've incorporated (or will next semester) the book into their classes.
Cringe-worthy, really. And again:
Anyway, I think the book will have enduring legs on the merits.
This suggests that nobody has been more profoundly suckered by Liberal Fascism than Jonah Goldberg. Poor dope.
Anyway, there's not really a "concerted effort" on the "lefty blogs" to "discredit" (snicker) Jonah Goldberg. And there never was -- a lot of people wanted to laugh at him and his silly book, is all. Because of the deliberately and moronically snide title, for one thing, but also because of just how generally flatulent the whole production turned out to be.
As for why I'm even bothering with Jonah now: he is merely the most consistently entertaining creature in the wingnut menagerie, for the time being. The stuff about Obama's birth certificate was comical but burnt out fast; Jesse Helms can only die so many times, more's the pity.
Nothing illustrates the extent to which "conservatives" have so much absolute nothing going on nowadays is how hard it's gotten to make fun of them.
Even Townhall is just plain boring nowadays. I mean, here's Kathleen "I Like Big Fuzzy Balls" Parker talking about... Wimbledon (sigh), straining manfully (or the lexical equivalent) to infuse the proceedings with sufficient priapism to make the case that Western Culture has fallen dreadfully from the civilized heights it enjoyed back in the days when we made Oscar Wilde pick oakum for fucking rent boys:
At a time when adults bemoan the paucity of role models, Wimbledon provided a banquet of riches. Tennis has always been a gentleman's (and lady's) game, though in recent years standards have sagged. Manners aren't as fashionable or as rigorously enforced as once upon a time.
Though you have to admire the imagery here:
Throughout, both men were mesmerizingly fierce and yet imperturbably calm. At crucial points they were like gladiators playing chess.
Hackneyed, sure. But then again there's nothing quite like a cliche wearing slightly new clothes when it comes to sports commentary, which tends often enough as it is towards a very K-Parkerian pecksniffery. Shit. Give her three hours in the wee hours on Fox Sports Radio! She would be like a water pistol in the desert, I'm telling you.
Anyway, wingnuts got nothing. I wish one of them would just point out already that they're in the shitter because of the war based on lies, the social issues based on hate, the environmental policy based on greed, and the economic policy based on, uh, greed, as well. Because watching that poor bastard get tossed on the barbecue would at least make the whole crowd of them fun again just like they used to be, back when they were pretending full-blast that George W. Bush ever knew what the hell he was doing.
In the meantime, we'll always have Goldberg.