Roger Ailes (The Non-Evil One) pointed out the other day that the release date of Jonah Goldberg’s hotly anticipated book, Liberal Fascism, has receded so far into the future that it’s now being edited by a Morlock. At the same time, Wo’C reader Kathy suggested that we stage another of our lame contests as a way to avoid coming up with any original content, and the thought occurred to me: Why not marshal the power of the blogosphere, and write Jonah’s book for him?
But before we can stage this literary barn-raising, we should probably acquaint ourselves with the subject and style of Jonah’s magnum opus, so that we can do justice to its groundbreaking scholarship, and sober, yet striking cover art:
Unfortunately, Jonah has been as cagey about the contents of his book as the Office of the Vice President has been about the actual number of people Dick Cheney has shot in the face while staggering around various game ranches, cranked to a frenzy on a cocktail of digitalis and Rumple Minze.
Fortunately, Jonah was moved to reveal certain, peekaboo details, when Tim Noah at Slate threw a little chin music his way. Unfortunately, Jonah was evidently in a Star Trekian mood at the time, channeling Captain Kirk from the “I” episode of The Original Series. (When Spock is unable to adequately classify a giant menacing space amoeba, Kirk rejoins, “If you can’t tell me what it is, let’s use reverse logic — Perhaps it’ll help if you tell me what it isn’t.“) And that’s exactly how Jonah describes his forthcoming (or, more accurately, eighthcoming) tome:
My book isn’t like Dinesh’s latest book. It isn’t like any Ann Coulter book. It isn’t what the Amazon description says or what the Economist claims it is. Or what Frank Rich imagines it is. It is a very serious, thoughtful, argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care.
And just to underscore what ruthless charlatans his publishers are, here’s the bottle of snake oil they’re trying to palm off as Jonah’s book:
Since the rise and fall of the Nazis in the midtwentieth century, fascism has been seen as an extreme right-wing phenomenon. Liberals have kept that assumption alive, hurling accusations of fascism at their conservative opponents. LIBERAL FASCISM offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics. Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg shows that the original fascists were really on the Left and that liberals, from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton, have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler’s National Socialism.
Goldberg draws striking parallels between historic fascism and contemporary liberal doctrines. He argues that “political correctness” on campuses and calls for campaign finance reform echo the Nazis’ suppression of free speech; and that liberals, like their fascist forebears, dismiss the democratic process when it yields results they dislike, insist on the centralization of economic decision-making, and seek to insert the authority of the state in our private lives–from bans on smoking to gun control. Covering such hot issues as morality, anti-Semitism, science versus religion, health care, and cultural values, he boldly illustrates the resemblances between the opinions advanced by Hitler and Mussolini and the current views of the Left.
Impeccably researched and persuasively argued, LIBERAL FASCISM will elicit howls of indignation from the liberal establishment–and rousing cheers from the Right.
So. Whatever you write, make sure it doesn’t contain any of that stuff.
So here’s the deal. Write a page of Jonah’s book and post it in the comments. The first page, the last page — whatever you prefer. And remember, he probably triple spaces, so it doesn’t have to be the length of an actual page. Just make sure that it’s serious, thoughtful, detailed, and caring. And that you outsource all the research to your readers.
Good luck to all. The winner will receive their choice of a copy of , or a World O’ Crap mug. Go forth and procrastinate.
[from the Introduction]
. . . question I get the most after “Do you still have a book coming out?” is “Doesn’t your book violate Godwin’s Law?” This is an excellent question, so I posed it to my readers at The Corner: “What is Godwin’s Law?”
Left by Mark S. on March 28th, 2007