He spend the whole thing trying to weasel out of the inherent contradictions in his frankly stupid thesis. A long string of uuuuuh I'll have to look that up. Of course having written a book, he has presented himself as an expert on liberalism and fascism -- but still every not-tough question attracts a "I'll have to look that up."

Reveals Goldberg's not-so-inner bullshit artist.

You say:

"I think liberals particularly are ill-suited to combat fascism -- I think their tendency toward ecumenical thinking makes them ill-disposed to combat fascists. They're too busy trying to accommodate and manage fascists, and only too late realize that they've been played and outmaneuvered."

You know, Perle made the same mistake on an interview in the UK in the early 80s where, losing and argument with Dennis Healey, the deputy leader of the labour party he accused the British left of wanting to appease the Russians "just like you appeased Hitler." Perle then accused Healey of personal cowardice -- a nice line from a noted Chickenhawk to the beach commander at Anzio.

The thing Slackie is, historically, it has been conservatives who appeased facists. It was for example a conservative prime-minister that signed the Munich agreement (Churchill by the way had been a Liberal and a Conservative party member), it was the very right wing Jean Kirkpatrick who European diplomats describes as wanting to bear very right wing South American dictator's children.

Facts and history show you to be wrong.

Alex - what has Goldberg previously produced that was interesting or insightful? Which predictions has he made which have turned out to be correct? Is there are particular reason why he should be referred to as a "pundit"?

We need our media to contribute to political discourse by pushing for standards - you need to differentiate between those who have valuable insights and those which do not deserve any attention. Otherwise we'll continue to be forced to discuss topics raised by swiftboaters or Michelle Malkin.

The man obviously is trolling with his book title. Just as that other right wing bitch whose name I will not utter or type. You know who I mean. Why give him (or her) the time of day let alone 4 (four!) pages. Bleh. Come on guys, you can find better things to spend time with.

Shame on the people at Doubleday for publishing this faux-history junk. The company that printed such great writers as Conrad and Maugham now offers us this. Mister Goldberg may address some interesting subjects in his book, but he is by no means an authority on any of them. Do not read this book expecting a critical analysis of modern history, it is mere political punditry and has very little (if any) literary value.

I would add that, in my opinion, Goldberg gets it wrong in this interview when he associates, or judges rather the supposed association of, fascism with evil. Fascist regimes bring about something far more terrible, stupidity, because they discourage, limit and ultimately suppress intelligent and free thought. I would agree that, as American popular culture is largely stupid, there are elements of fascism in our society, but to blame these on the present political parties or ideologies, be they left or right, is oversimplified. The real culprit is more likely economic of nature. Post World War II America, we all can plainly see, is financially driven. What makes money determines what we think. That is why this book was published and why men like Jonah Goldberg are undeservedly respected as true thinkers.

Forget about "left" vs. "right."

Yawn.

REALITY IS: MAMA GOT HER BOY A JOB(S)

Nothing more.

As usual, most of the responders attack the person and with that avoid the intellectual work of trying to refute his/her thesis or at least comment on them in a meaningful manner. Most people who enter political discourse are prepared for that, Goldberg (whom I never knew from Adam) is apparently one of them.

It makes me wonder why people do enter political discourse. But that's just a side thought.

I also had the feeling that Goldberg was evasive about certain arguments. Maybe he is young, maybe he is less than knowledgeable, maybe he is insecure, maybe he wanted to be invited back again so he gave a lot of slack to Koppelman, agreeing with him in "sort of", "yes but" ways. He agrees, he concedes, and when all that fails he claims "gee I can't recall". How can he not recall core tenets of a book he read 3 years ago if that book was written by the very person he wrote a book about? It is iffy, lame and fishy.

It was also a mistake on the part of the interviewer to assert that for 60 years fascism has been associated with the right and now here comes this book with a new opinion. It is so untrue that I don't even have to cite examples. Yes, maybe, the left (where I venture to believe Koppelman belongs) associated fascism with the right, but meanwhile the right has been associating fascism with the left, claiming that leftist dictatorships were de facto fascists, they were just not called that due to the propaganda work of the left that dominated the definitions of the discourse. Was this K's way to go soft on G?

But the main lesson for me from this interview was how utterly hopeless it is to discuss this topic. The central word, "fascism", and its relevant associates such as "left", "right", "liberal", are ill defined and emotionally laden. Especially the key word, "fascism", has been so overused that it has lost most of its original definitions.

It is one thing to claim that stalinist dictatorships were de facto fascist. Just using a current post form this thread, the one made by Chad Bagley, underscores the point. Anyone who knows the basics of the former Soviet Union will recognize that points 1 to 7 fit to a tee, point 8 is indeed different (but not critical, theism is simply replaced by a secular creed), 9 applies because in stalinism all industries are corporatized, except that all corporations are owned by the state, 10 applies especially painfully because the oppression of the workers is made worse by the lie that they are in power, 11 applies because the point is in error: in fascism arts are in fact centrally supported, but of course only those that are centrally approved, 12 to 14 again applies 100%.

These political entities are now fading into the past, mostly, even China is not what it used to be, NK seems to be the only holdover. As they recede, it perhaps becomes possible one day to discuss them with a rational approach.

But to call the banning of foods in today's America fascism, using expressions such as "fascism by kindness" dilutes the term to the degree of sloganeering. Or, just to go soft on the author because he was not the one who caused the damage, it means using the already long-diluted meaning of the term. A meaningful book would have recognized this and avoided falling into the trap of colloquialism. Add to this the fact that fascist is now simply a term of insult. Well, it was already an insult during antifascist wars, but back then it still had a hard meaning: a nazi sympathizer, a member of the Arrowcross militia in Hungary, etc. But by today it has deteriorated into only an insult, usually meaning "a person I disagree with because he is for banning something I like to do". It gets colored by the hopelessly emotional left-right vs good-evil cross-dichotomy. You then have books like these followed by discussions like these.

But what else can you do but use words. I, too, had to resort to them in this posting.