We have got to do this, exquisite corpse-style. I'll start:
"Dear Jonah,
"As an unemployed single father of three, who lost his job and his wife due to political correctness run amok, Liberal Fascism has been a comfort during the Dhimmicrats' pantomime primary season...."
Funny stuff - but it also shows how hard Goldberg is to lampoon. I don't think I would have batted an eye had I seen that e-mail. Next to the book itself, that e-mail isn't all that immature and/or stupid.
I read the email on the LF blog first, and was like...huh? I'm a slow reader? But then a lot of people who email him are genuinely weird, so I thought it was just another example.
Has Goldberg taken the letter down?
One easy way to answer the question in 4 is to click on the second link in the post.
You already sent me to Volokh once this week. I won't be fooled again!
Next you'll be telling people to read the posts and shit.
Yeah, I also didn't see any reason not to publish the letter.
Does anyone from anyone's real life care about this book? No one in mine has mentioned it. Which is good for the most part, but you know, people in real life need stupid shit to make fun of too.
My copy of Liberal Fascism should be arriving any day now!
10 how strange
why you condemn the book and buy it, how is it different from endorsing
if i don't like a book i would not denounce it, but wouldn't buy
and the fake fan letter also seems not right to me
as if you bring yourself down to your opponents level whom you so much despise
Let me put it this way: the people in Swarthmore's Education Program wouldn't have known about it if I hadn't told them, and when I told them, they were amused for about 1.5 seconds and promptly forgot about it afterwards. Which tells you something about how much the book matters: if you have a blurb on the back that calls someone a fascist and they're not only not angry, they barely care or notice, it doesn't bode well for how much your book matters.
OMG, hilarious. So, so hilarious. I heart d.
Mouseover Sifu's link, people. He's turned into a full-time book shill lately, so it shouldn't be hard to guess which book he means....
it doesn't bode well for how much your book matters
... to the Swarthmore Education Program.
Yeah, I have to admit, I feel a shiver of fear when I look at the bestseller lists.
Elsewhere on the LF blog: "I attended a special White House briefing for conservative journalists by WH Chief of Staff, Josh Bolten."
Replace "conservative" with "liberal" and watch the heads of the entire Fox newsroom explode.
Am I naive to think that no other White House would have a "special" briefing for reporters of a particular political stripe? (At least not one that was billed that way.)
19: I feel better when I remember that you can get on the NYT bestseller list by selling only 5,000-10,000 copies a week.
only 5,000-10,000 copies a week
That's not an "only." That's like an excellent annual sale for many books.
i swear i'll never ask questions from Beefo Meaty again
22: I know, which is depressing in a whole 'nother way. But being #3 on the NYT list always sounded to me like ZOMG! Millions of people are buying this book!
Does anyone from anyone's real life care about this book?
My sister saw Goldberg being interviewed on the Daily Show. She was telling me about it later and I had to explain who he was.
I didn't want to complain about it at LGM, because I don't have strong feelings about it, but this doesn't seem like a proper way to treat someone, even someone who supports evil policies.
20: I would like a President who had an activist agenda to have special briefings for activist press. For one thing, it would suggest that the "liberal media" and the "mainstream media" were, in fact, two different groups.
WD, don't be a wuss. Yes, it's mean. But it's also (1) funny and (2) kind of deserved.
Wait, prank emails are off limits, now? I mean, this is surely a bit of harmless fun if there ever was one.
Oh, I laughed. It's too bad my moral and comic sensibilities aren't more closely aligned.
It's really just so pathetic.... was that the best praise mail he had received?
3: FL regularly reads the Liberal Fascism blog?
Cala, there was also this, from a reader email...
Also the book has provided me with airtight rationale to start boozing again -perhaps the greatest service any human being could perform. William James influenced the fascist movements of the last century. He was also had a strong impact on Bill Wilson and the pioneers of Alcoholics Anonymous. Therefore AA (could have been a New Deal agency) is fascist. I can't very well belong to a group like that. Bottoms Up,
Is there a line between sincerity and parody?
this doesn't seem like a proper way to treat someone, even someone who supports evil policies.
Really? I can't think of a more harmless way to make a point. Out of curiosity--is it the picking on morons that bothers you or something else?
35: I wouldn't have thought Bush would have read it so quickly.
Jonah also says, on the blog that exists solely to promote LF: "I have no obligation to call attention to unadulterated asininity."
That's Jonah -- going far beyond his obligations, just for little ole us.
It's not sending the prank emails but rather the mocking him for believing the email is actually from a reader that bothers me. But I'm not sure the two are conceptually distinct.
washerdreyer I have word from Jonah himself that he's totally okay with people mocking him however they want, and that he actually finds it pretty funny, since truth be told he is possibiliy the laziest, dumbest beneficiary of nepotism since at least George W. Bush. So, not to worry.
If we're looking for internet hijinks to fight about, how about online privacy vs. protecting women from really nasty harassment?
Sifu, plz provide ISBN # of teh book you sale. Thx.
McManlyPants needs you to do it.
the mocking him for believing the email is actually from a reader
How about mocking him, not for believing the email is real, but for believing it consitutes an endorsement of his book that's worth advertising?
14: as often, I totally disagree. "Ignore them and they'll go away, they're beneath us" has been tried for 20-25 years, and it hasn't worked.
None of those people -- Coulter, Goldberg, Malkin, Horowitz, Limbaugh, Beck, Savage, O'Reilly -- may have any interest to us or worthy of any respect, but they're influential. They get on TV, and even if people who buy their books don't really read the books, their prejudices are reinforced.
Goldberg may encounter certain problems, but not because he's too stupid to bother with. On the one hand, it may be that the right wing is at the end of its run, and that Goldberg will go down with the rest of them. On the other hand, his book is too difficult for the easy-reading conservatives, and too stupid for the conservatives who think of themselves as scholarly and intelligent.
How about mocking him for being a complete tool?
49->46
JE has the gist of it in 47 though. There are some people, particularly in media these days who have influence all out of proportion to any talent or expertise they may possess. It's their positioning that is a problem, not their execrable screeds per se.
He was also had a strong impact on Bill Wilson and the pioneers of Alcoholics Anonymous. Therefore AA (could have been a New Deal agency) is fascist.
Awesomely, Bill Wilson and AA are a demonstration of why America didn't need the New Deal in this best-selling right-wing book.
Am I naive to think that no other White House would have a "special" briefing for reporters of a particular political stripe? (At least not one that was billed that way.)
Harry Reid's office put together a thing with "progressive media" yesterday. Nancy Pelosi has spoken several times to an insidious cabal of liberal journalists who convene off-the-record breakfast meetings with noteworthy individuals. I would imagine a smart Obama or Clinton administration would, in fact, organize special events designed to reach out to progressive media.