One of the most glaring problems with Movement Conservatism is that they let Jonah Goldberg belong to it. A worse problem is that they let him speak. To compound this error, they give him something of a prominent platform.
In today's episode of Jonah Goldberg being an ass, here he is denying that Jesse Helms was a racist sonofabitch.
From a reader:
It would be refreshing if the National Review took the occasion of Jesse Helms' death to reflect on American conservatism's historical complicity with racism, rather than to make jokes about fringe left definitions of racism. All I have seen on the Corner are breathless eulogizations of Jesse Helms. If you really wanted Americans outside of your base to take people like Ward Connerly seriously, you would call a spade a spade, and denounce Jesse Helms' racist legacy as a stain on conservatism.
Me: I have no problem with reflecting on conservatism and race. But I find these sorts of finger-wags tiresome. The gist seems to be: "Agree with my unfair stereotype of conservatism or be guilty of conforming to my unfair stereotype of conservatism." If conservatives are the racists he suggests they are, why aren't NRO writers celebrating Helms' alleged racism rather than denying it? Maybe folks around here don't think the liberal line is true (in whole or in part)? And as such, throwing Helms under the bus to appease the fingerwaggers would be nothing more than an act of cowardice.
If the reader could break out of the Corner and read some of the pieces we have posted on the homepage, he might at least contemplate that Helms' career is more complicated than the mean-spirited and agenda driven mainstream media obits have suggested.
One of the most important differences between principled liberalism and the deeply muddled "conservatism" of Jonah Goldberg and the moral morons he speaks for is that for liberals, the "oh yes, he was a racist, sure... BUT" style arguments cut no ice. Especially when the racist (and homophobe!) in question was (a) egregiously bigoted, (b) politically powerful, (c) unrepentant, and (d) lauded on his expiration as some sort of a "hero" by a soi-disant "intellectual movement."
Recent discussions of "conservative" v. "liberal" views of patriotism and so forth really just boil down to where you stand on the end of Jesse Helms, and I for one am content to let matters there so rest. I mean -- it's Jesse Helms, for the love of fuck...
UPDATE. Jonah Goldberg links to this to explain why "conservatives" are not clueless douchebags on the issue of race. The first few sentences are a positive delight.
On April 4, 2008, mourners gathered at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York to memorialize William F. Buckley, Jr., who had died five weeks earlier. That same Friday, mourners one thousand miles away gathered at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis to memorialize Martin Luther King, Jr., who had been murdered there exactly 40 years before.
The coincidence resonates. Drawing on exceptional rhetorical talents without ever being elected to public office, each man transformed the terrain where mere politicians clash.
The sheer bloody cheek. More tomorrow. (But for now, nobody at the fucking NR has any goddamn business talking static to Pravda. No shit.)