Goldberg, Kevin Holtsberry, and Steve Dillard take exception to the assertion in my recent post on The Conservative Minority that “the modern Conservative Moment seems to be dominated by the shrill nonsense of Coulter and Jonah Goldberg and Michael Savage and Neil Boortz.”
First, it’s a good sign that conservatives at least recognize that being associated with these people is counterproductive.
As for Goldberg, the inclusion is perhaps too broad. He’s taken over as editor of NRO’s The Corner and he’s one of the more temperate voices there. Stylistically, he’s not a bomb thrower in the mold of Coulter, let alone a flaming nutbag like Savage.
He’s on the list almost exclusively by virtue of his book, Liberal Fascism, and the recent controversy over it. While I get the desire to rebut the notion that Fascism is right-wing phenomenon and therefore somehow comparable to American mainstream conservatism, the argument that American liberals are proto-Fascists is quite silly. The use of inflammatory titles, while an excellent publicity vehicle for selling books, is decidedly unhelpful if one’s purpose is to advance serious argument.
There is, however, a stark difference between Coulter, who seriously argues that liberals are traitors, fascists, or whathaveyou, than cutesy publicity stunts.
