Jonah Goldberg has been doing the "book circuit", attempting to pump up interest for his latest and greatest "Liberal Fascism". His interview on (a) Daily Show with Jon Stewart didn't go well for him at all---well, because Jon Stewart is not stupid enough to believe his premise and is both well-read and quick-witted enough to refute him in real-time. Goldberg was intellectually defrocked within minutes (but at least managed to chuckle good-naturedly---albeit nervously---instead of getting angry). Stewart's witty repartee notwithstanding, it is an even greater pleasure to read this extremely well-written and well-founded critique of the same book, <a href="http://www.amconmag.com/2008/2008_01_28/review.html" source="The American Conservative" author="Austin W. Bramwell">Goldberg’s Trivial Pursuit</a>. Goldberg's nearly fanatical devotion to correlation and taxonomy leading to causation is taken apart bit by ill-thinking bit. As the author concludes, <iq>[i]n no case does Goldberg uncover anything more ominous than a coincidence.</iq> The danger is, of course, that very few people confronted with this bit of anti-intellectual tripe are equipped to discern the fallacious reasoning that underlies almost all 500 pages of the book. As the review notes, <bq>Conspiracy theories run amok not just among Nazis and anti-Bush leftists but across the political spectrum, doubtless because they have more cognitive appeal than the counterintuitive models needed to understand how the modern world actually works.</bq> The lack of partisanism or demonization of the left-wing on the part of a reviewer for a conservative web site was also refreshing. More's the pity that we've become so trained to expect knee-jerk, rabid commentary from both the left and the right. When we're confronted with someone who relies on justifiable fact with only a smattering of opinion where fact leaves things open to interpretation, we nearly get down on our knees and thank them for their sanity. It is truly refreshing to see level-headedness on this level, rejecting the hyperbole that is both created and eaten up by far more rabid outlets of purported conservatism. <bq>For one thing, liberals are entitled at least once a century to change their minds. Even if some who we might call liberals once delighted in Woodrow Wilson’s suppression of dissent, fretted over the pollution of America’s genetic stock, or urged Franklin Roosevelt to assume dictatorial powers, today’s liberals may disown these ideas if they like. Associating modern liberals with the dubious judgments of their predecessors is an ad hominem argument, and not even a very beguiling one.</bq> Can one even imagine a Bill Kristol, a Bill O'Reilly or a George Will granting that liberals are allowed to change their minds about something? Sadly, it's not just conservatives whose public image has been sullied by the more rabid of their adherents but liberals as well, who are also only too happy to throw around the label "fasicm" with only a modicum of burden-of-proof for its applicability. That's not to say that it's never applicable---just that one needn't call something fascist when it suffices to call it obnoxious, moronic or whatever is most fitting; applying a single label all the time not only robs it of all meaning but evinces an intellectual laziness. At any rate, one should heed both the explicit advice in the review, that <iq>[i]ntelligent liberals will not cry foul at <i>Liberal Fascism</i> so much as groan</iq>, but also the implicit advice, which calmly states that you should waste neither your money buying nor time reading this book.