say crazymonk, were the writers adequately compensated for your viewing of that streaming video segment?

A#1: Stewart looks weird.
B#2: Staggeringly low brow.

As TDS (well, ADS) itself has pointed out in recent weeks, they were all about the lowbrow then...all those Clinton jokes and all...

I never want to think that thought again.

Since I was over there, I popped over to see if the entire Jonah Goldberg interview was up. (Background: Goldberg and Stewart had an 18-minute, hostile-ish debate, and they had to cut most of it.) Alas, no. He wrote a column decrying Stewart for sins it didn't look to me like he actually committed, but there's no way to really know unless I see the whole damn thing. But the whole episode made me lose whatever respect I had for Goldberg.

Anyone who so easily makes non-nuanced, unsupported, deeply disputable summations of history as Golberg does in that column is worthy of very little respect.

Jesse - what do you specifically object to in that article?

Interesting bit from the interview:

Jon Stewart: "Liberalism at its heart seems like the individual over the state."

Liberalism is most assuredly not the placing of the individual over the state -- libertarianism is. I have a hard time seeing how the banning of trans-fats, or violent video games could constitute the placing of the individual over the state. Goldberg's general point, although admittedly sort of lost in both the interview and the article, seems to be to beware of government encroachment on individual freedoms, regardless of which end of the political spectrum it comes from... to not write off threats merely because they're coming from the left. This doesn't seem like an inherently untenable position.

Godwin.

The easy equating of Soviets with fascists, the sweeping claim that American progressives were sympathetic to Mussolini, the off-hand reference to eugenics and things of this nature- it's not that his ideological position is untenable, but he's basing his defense of his sensationalist title on really shaky ground and acting as though he isn't. And I'm bi-partisan in my dislike of this journalistic/editorial mode.

The title of Goldberg's essay implied that he'd be revealing parts of his argument that were cut from the interview, but he in fact rehashed the very parts that were on display:

• He went to great lengths to justify his cover diagram (which, as Stewart pointed out, typifies precisely the sort of behavior he claims to rail against).
• He attacked people who didn't "get" him for not reading the book (which makes no sense to me, since the very point of his going on the show was to convince people to read the book).
• He repeated his laughable claims that amount to the logical fallacy "all X believe Y. Z believes Y. Thus, Z is the same as X".

Goldberg's argument is as muddled as it seems, or if it isn't, he's doing a bad job of unmuddling. As far as I can tell his thesis is:

• Fascism isn't that bad.
• Liberals make Conservatives look bad by calling them Nazis and Fascists. That's unfair and should stop.
• Liberals are Nazis and Fascists.

I've never seen such a Mexican standoff of arguments -- each point diminishes the other two!

Jon May's interpretation of his three arguments:

A#1: Did he argue that fascism wasn't that bad?! I think I missed that point. If so, he's being a goofus.

B#2: His argument that people today call themselves progressive and that progressives once supported Mussolini is a silly one. I don't recall it being in the article, maybe that was simply a live TV flub, or maybe he genuinely believes it, but either way it's stupid. That an ideology, 75 years ago, mistakenly endorsed a philosophical direction bears no connection with what people who use that word today use it to mean. This is especially true with progressivism where almost literally NOBODY thinks it means fascism (unlike, say Confederate flag supporters where almost everybody DOES think that means racism).

C#3: Again, I think his argument was more along the lines of "be wary of all groups that seek to take aware your freedom, regardless of what their surface message may be" which is a perfectly valid (although rather dull) point. I assume he wasn't actually arguing that liberals are Nazis because he's not Ann Coulter. Whether you like him or not, he's not a total nutbag and I've never seen him take a stance as laughable as "liberals are Nazis."

Other Jon May points:

THE COVER: You always point out that the other side is doing something wrong by doing it right back to them. The use of what he was objecting to on the cover is, by itself, making the objection. Jon Stewart bringing it up was funny, but ultimately Stewart was wrong on that point. Jonah's parodying the use of fascism to attack the right and showing, sort of, why it's a faulty use of the imagery. I haven't read the book, so I have no idea if he's right, but the use of the name and cover appear valid within the framework of that argument.

ATTACKING NON-READERS FOR NOT GETTING IT: Yeah, that was stupid. He was probably getting into a defensive mindset at that point and was responding to questions with attack rather than answer. Stupid.

LAUGHABLE FOLLY: Yeah, that's bad. Again, I think it depends on what you think his ultimate argument is. If it's simply to be wary that those using the codewords of freedom aren't always bringing freedom under their lengthly cloaks, then it's valid. If the argument is that those who are progressive are actually fascists, then it's clearly invalid (and stupid). I assume it's the first because it makes more sense within the context of what he was talking about, though I acknowledge that he sort of presented it to be the second at times.

Ok, on to Jesse.

A#1 SOVIETS: Soviets are easily equatable with fascists. I have no issues with this.

B#2 AMERICAN LIBERALS LIKED MUSSOLINI: I have no historical information on this point either way. Was he wrong about that? I could use more background on this.

C#3 EUGENICS: I don't recall what point he was making with eugenics, but whatever that point may have been it doesn't support the argument that I think he was making, so I'll grant you that it's out of line. Again, if he WAS arguing then liberals are fascists, then bringing up eugenics was valid, but then he's a fool and a jerk.

Oh, please. The cover, like all book covers, was designed to get attention and sell books. It's not an intellectual objection to what the left does (nor do I buy the argument that only the left Godwinizes debates). As everyone here has acknowledged, it's the same fallacy he uses in the article, in the interview, and according to Stewart, in the book.

I'd like to add that another problem I have with Goldberg's column is that he misrepresented his argument with Stewart. As I remember it, Stewart had a problem with the cover AND some of the arguments inside the book AND Goldberg's explanations of them. Of course, answering criticisms of your ideas is much harder than answering criticisms of your cover. I suppose Stewart's editors could have edited it to be misleading, but I've never caught them doing that.

• He certainly argues that fascism isn't that bad:
  We've come to use the word "fascist" as a substitute for "evil" or "bad." The left in particular has institutionalized argumentum ad hitlerum as a means of delegitimizing viewpoints they find objectionable

  Also:

  We've allowed the staggering moral horror of the Holocaust to color our conception of what fascism was.

  To me this means "Liberals say 'Hitler was a fascist, thus all fascists are bad' and unfairly label all fascists as followers of Hitler and bad." In other words, not all fascists are bad.

• If his logical fallacy tactic was a flub, it's a flub he makes over and over again. The best example in the interview was his assertion (brought up by Stewart) that the Organic food movement is Nazi-ist because the Nazis liked Organics. He gets really close to his logic in the article:

  American progressives, particularly before Hitler arrived on the scene in the 1930s, were openly sympathetic to Italian fascism.

  But he doesn't go the whole way with it, and simply claims to be using this logic to explain the roots of progressivism. However, in other areas on the show, he certainly goes there.

• On the Cover, you say:

  You always point out that the other side is doing something wrong by doing it right back to them. The use of what he was objecting to on the cover is, by itself, making the objection.

  He can claim whatever he wants to about the origin of his cover design, just like I can claim my personalized license plate "NOTCLVR" means "Not clever" or "Nazi lover". The fact of the matter is he's created a book with a big smiley face and a hitler moustache and a provocative title. It will sell well because it's provocative, just like all the books and talking heads he criticizes do well because they're provocative. And he admits that he's doing it for that reason:

  If I'd followed [non-provocative conservative scholars], no one would be buying my book, reading it or discussing it.

Nazism and fascism were pretty similar, although also distinct in certain regards. The Russian commies were neither fascist nor Nazi (which does not mean that they were good). As soon as the Russians, or the jihadis, or whoever else, becomes "fascist" simply by virtue of their repressive or authoritarian or totalitarian nature, the word "fascist" is an empty rhetorical device. I don't draw parallels between "conservatives" and fascists, I draw parallels between right wing nationalists and fascists, because that's a large part of what the fascists were. Goldberg is an ideologue who is pretending to be a historian and a thinker.

To me this means "Liberals say 'Hitler was a fascist, thus all fascists are bad' and unfairly label all fascists as followers of Hitler and bad." In other words, not all fascists are bad.

What I think he's trying to say is not that fascism isn't bad, but that the word is used today, mostly by the left, as a synonym for bad. Which he finds objectionable.

I think he's correct that the left does use the word a lot (although I think it's the less reputable portion of the left), but I don't really think it matters. Words are usually just words, especially when they're being used as an insult.

when i was 15 i had a ponytail. i cut it off during the summer and a friend of mine called me a fascist bastard.

jbg says:
"don't you know that if your opinion is different than mine, it's wrong?!"
perhaps your friend had a point.