Would it be irresponsible to speculate? It would be irresponsible not to! Alex Pareene observes the specimen in his latest “Hack List” entry at Salon:
Jonah Goldberg is a syndicated columnist, author of books and National Review Online editor because his mother nearly took down Bill Clinton. He is, it’s fair to say, aware of that fact, or at least aware that everyone else thinks it, and his insecurity has made him a uniquely pathetic figure in contemporary conservative thought: He aspires to be taken seriously as a public intellectual, but he is the world’s laziest thinker. It is a grand and wonderful joke that Jonah Goldberg, of all people, would write an entire book about how liberals rely on clichés instead of original thought and intellectual argument…
Goldberg soon created the National Review’s multi-contributor blog The Corner, which will be his greatest legacy: Now an entire generation knows the National Review not as the leading intellectual light of the conservative movement, but as the place where random right-wing hacks alternate arguments about the grossness of Mexicans and gays with brief thoughts on Star Wars and personal tales of harrowing run-ins with liberal stereotypes.
Goldberg is always careful never to actually stake out a controversial position on anything. He’ll never buck the movement, but he sees himself as above the right-wing populists. His position on any number of issues is impossible to discern. On gay marriage: “I have always felt that gay marriage was an inevitability, for good or ill (most likely both).” Jonah defended waterboarding while also claiming to find it a “tough question” and complaining that supporters of waterboarding were unfairly tarred as “pro-torture.” Everything he writes for publication is littered with “to be sure” ass-covering and declarations that he’s not actually seriously arguing what it seems very much like he’s arguing. (The Supreme Court’s Fred Phelps ruling was deplorable but also probably correct but maybe not. Julian Assange should be assassinated not that I’m saying for real that he should be assassinated.) He’s too cowardly and insecure to allow himself to be pinned down on most divisive political issues, much preferring to devote pixels and ink to making fun of mythical sandal-wearing Prius-driving (formerly Volvo-driving) liberals who supposedly think things he finds silly. Or Barbra Streisand, a recurring figure in his oeuvre…
In one of my favorite Goldberg passages of all time, he wrote: “I was trying to make a general point which everyone understands but also ended up communicating an even more general falsehood. Like saying violence never solves anything, people understand what I mean even when in reality what I’m saying isn’t true.” Not sure how anyone could argue with that…
Much, much more to enjoy at the link. I wonder if Mom Lucianne saved her own navy-blue dress, because that last quote sure reads like the idiot bastard offspring of the NYT‘s house-brand Very Serious Centrist!
Citizen_X
Ow. Talk about leaving a mark.
And this (as Pareene notes, highschoolish) crap:
“Who knows? Doughnuts, anyone?”
Isn’t Goldberg the one who gave us the “central to my point” meme, when one of the main facts in an argument he was making was shown to be dead wrong?
Baud
Jonah Goldberg is one of the most incisive political commentators of our time, although I think it’s best that he’s not recognized for it.
WereBear
The money they waste on the likes of Goldberg is money they begrudge when it feeds a child.
So it’s no wonder his brain doesn’t work right. What’s strange is how he never even tries to crank the starter.
serge
“If I recall correctly, which I don’t, and I don’t have the time to research it because I have a deadline to meet, namely the grocery store list I’ve been working on…”
dr. bloor
It must be very strange to be Jonah Goldberg. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile. Hyperbolic? Well, maybe.
c u n d gulag
In a better, more sane country, writing something as blatantly stupid and full of lies as “Liberal Fascism,” would eliminate one from any job involving writing, and that includes the job of painting roadway billboard signs.
As for his Mom, well – the turd doesn’t fall far from the sphincter.
AWL
He’s not just that, he’s also a Pulitzer Prize nominee!
amk
@serge: Even for making a grocery list, you need to think. These pundtwit fuckers just spew whatever comes into their feeble & cowardly minds.
SFAW
How little you understand Jonah.
“Hi, all, I’m working on a grocery list – any of you ever done that before? If so, can you forward any research you might be willing to share? I don’t really know if I should focus on the so-called ‘staples’ – meat, bread, milk, etc. – or if I should concentrate on Twinkies, Cheetos, and Jolt. Any thoughts?”
SFAW
amk –
By the way, I like “pundtwit”.
Ash Can
Last week M-80 handed me his i-Pad, saying, “here, read this article; it’s funny.” I started reading. The first couple of sentences were mildly humorous, then the writing quickly became heavy-handed and just plain dumb. I flipped ahead a few paragraphs, and saw that it didn’t get any better. I looked to see who had written this stupid article. You guessed it. I handed the i-Pad back to M-80.
Southern Beale
I read the Alex Pareene story last week. I thought it was very well done. I knew Goldberg was a Legacy Pundit but I had no idea that his mother was the one who flogged the Vince Foster story.
Didn’t Goldberg briefly have a column at the New York Times (or was it WaPo?) before embarassing himself with some plagiarized thing or unchecked fact that was hilariously wrong?
low-tech cyclist
Doughy Pantload? That’s so last year. Now, weirdly enough, he’s apparently decided to opt for the Chubby Trotsky look.
low-tech cyclist
@Southern Beale: I think that was Erick Erickson, of RedState fame.
Bob2
Oh well, posting both images got me caught in the spam filter, but here’s the ineptness of Jonah
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cdRcfmTz7y4/T62JNat5weI/AAAAAAAABCY/Vmv6AZuDhds/s1600/tweet+goldberg.png
in Twitter form.
RSA
This review by Mark Adomanis in Forbes is an epic take-down of Goldberg’s new book.
dmsilev
@Southern Beale:
I think you’re thinking of Ben Domenech, who the Post hired to be a “red state blogger”, and lasted for something like a week before crashing and burning due to several plagiarism episodes coming to light.
Patricia Kayden
Goldberg’s book is on the top 10 bestseller’s list according to the Washington Post. So, I guess someone wants to read his tripe.
WereBear
@Patricia Kayden: Nay, that is the power of bulk sales and conservative book clubs. Apparently Newt Gingrich makes a lot of money selling his books; but I don’t think that means anything literary.
EconWatcher
@WereBear:
I would imagine that very few actually read Jonah Goldberg’s books, beyond the titles. I think they’re the kind of thing you display ostentatiously, to show your bona fides as a wingnut.
I would think even a half-literate wingnut would find his prose unendurable.
Jay C
@WereBear:
Not to mention that the vast majority of these right-wing “best-sellers” apparently never actually get read: they’re bulk-bought to pump up sales numbers, widely-distributed – and usually get bulk-remaindered and/or pulped in the end.
Who says conservatives aren’t into recycling??
gnomedad
FTA also, too:
SFAW
Fixed to comport better with reality.
GregB
These attacks on Congressional Medal of Honor winner Jonah Goldberg are unconscionable.
driftglass
Regarding Legacy Pundits, let us not forget that for his excellent work ginning up the Iraq war, Bill Kristol was given a NYT column so he could continue to work out his Daddy issues in public.
http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2011/07/kristol-blue-persuasion.html
After he fucked that up, he was given a regular column in Time Magazine.
After he fucked that up, Fabulous Fred Hiatt found him a snuggly little nest at the WaPo.
Also too, the wingnuts do books because books of that genre have stopped being something one reads. Instead they are 1) another way to get another wingnut welfare check into the hands of the talentless, 2) totemic objects one holds up on teevee once your $5k/week agent books yous on the usual shows to demonstrate that you are a Serious Person.
SFAW
Kinda amazing that he also won the Nobel Peace Prize for Literachure and Ritin’ Stuff, too. Wherever did he find the time to both serve seven tours in Eye-rack AND do the voluminous research necessary to rite stuff?
Villago Delenda Est
You may have noticed that there are a lot of wingnut books that are given to you with subscriptions to wingnut magazines. This is all part of the “best seller” scam that these shitstains run.
SFAW
With Kristol, that statement can pretty much accompany anything he has ever done or will do.
I seem to recall someone noting that Billy Kristol has been Wrong About EVERYTHING.
kindness
Goldberg is a whiney ass titty baby. If it hadn’t been for his mother and the Clinton/Linda Tripp fiasco nobody would know him from a hole in the ground.
Frankly, a cess pool hole in the ground is preferable to Jonah and his mother.
Downpuppy
With McArdle still on the bench, Susan of Texas has been batting Goldberg around for a week.
The parts where he calls himself a pedophile & where she looks at his sources are the most fun.
dj spellchecka
if conservatives believed in an actual meritocracy rather than wingnut welfare, jonah wouldn’t be writing for the national review, he’d be parking cars for the national review
the sad truth the doughy pantload has to face…..his entire career was launched by a cum stain on a dress….and it wasn’t even his cum
LanceThruster
Well…you know what they say. One doughy pantload, three opinions.
Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
This is what strikes me as so odd about Goldberg. I don’t know everything about everything; I don’t even know everything about any subjects or a few things about every subject. But I know a good deal about some things. I can go on and on, with a pretty good grasp of what I’m talking about, when I get going about, say, poverty in Honduras (where I’ve lived), or about the history of English spelling (really), or about the 1787 U.S. Constitutional Convention (which I studied in college.
I mean, sure Goldberg can’t go on at length and know what he’s talking about on every subject or issue in the world; nobody can do that. But, what the hell, you’d think he could speak intelligently about something. Jeez. He’s written what we shall call, for purposes of our argument here, “books”. About, what we shall call for purposes of our argument here, “stuff”. You’d think he could say something worth listening to about at least some of the stuff he writes about. But everything he drools out seems to read like what I’d write if somebody told me to write about quantum mechanics or the history of Cambodian religious art:
There. I think that’s worthy of a Pulitzer, too, don’t you all?
Mickey
All I gotta read is “Salon” and I know I don’t have to waste any more time reading more.
Most of these online outfits seem to be going to shit. Too hard to resist going down the rabbit hole when they notice it gives them a few extra clicks. Trouble is it damagest their credibility and ultimately dooms them in the long term.
Not a lot of places I can’t say that hasn’t happened. Now when critisizing the president for no apparent reason doesn’t seem to work anymore and there is no Teaparty threat to bitch about their fate is sealed. Fuck all of them! Especially places like FDL and HuffPuff but Salon too. The list goes on and one.
Bruce S
Low hanging fruit, but tasty.