Among other things, Jonah Goldberg thinks I'm illiterate, a hack, mopey, and an Obama hack (on that note, my how things change). I was thinking about saying a bunch of mean things back, but I realized I'm not particularly blameless in the "mean things" tone of our exchange, so I won't escalate. He and I can compare bookshelves later, if it comes to that. But I don't really understand why Jonah's so touchy about his book. I mean, I do, on one level. I don't like having mean things said about my work, and I presume Jonah doesn't either. It must hurt to have your book relentlessly mocked for months before the publishing date, then relentlessly mocked some more once it comes out in stores. But here's the part that confuses me: No one forced Jonah to write a book called "Liberal Fascism." No one forced him to spend a couple hundred pages trying to tie modern liberals in with fascists and totalitarians because, hey, lots of liberals are vegetarians, and so was Hitler; lots of liberals are mistrustful of capitalism, and so was Hitler; the national socialists may have been right-wing in the politics of Germany, but they also taxed the rich, etc, etc, etc. This is a book about contemporary liberalism in which the Nazi Party Platform serves as an appendix. It's like a parody of itself.
