{"id":544,"date":"2008-01-19T10:32:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-19T14:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=544"},"modified":"2008-01-19T10:42:04","modified_gmt":"2008-01-19T14:42:04","slug":"five-thumbs-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=544","title":{"rendered":"Five thumbs up"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you look at the website<\/a> for Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism<\/em>, you'll find a lot of email from alienated college students, praising the bold and cogent thesis of the book, and commending its author for the way he handled himself on A Daily Show with Jon Stewart<\/em>.  You'll also find its author responding to negative reviews:<\/p>\n

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It's something of a cliché to complain that a poor book review says more about the reviewer than it does about the book. Sometimes this is clearly just a defense mechanism offered by authors who've written bad books. Other times it happens to be true. Matt Yglesias' “serious” review<\/a> of my book is one of those times.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And he goes on to attack the reviewer:<\/p>\n

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In short, his review is a piece of theater used to disguise his own cognitive dissonance. Nothing to see here folks, no need to read this book, no need to do any heavy thinking whatsoever. Indeed, thinking is the last thing Matt or his friends on the left want to do when it comes to my book. That is why the default response in those quarters has been to call me stupid or partisan (or both — or worse). No reason to rethink your basic premises if a book can be dismissed as mere partisan hackery.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That's not the only time<\/a>.  Goldberg can't seem to address any negative criticism of his argument without maligning the motives or the seriousness of the reviewer.  Ok, one last example:<\/p>\n

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On Thursday, I said<\/a> that David Neiwert’s review<\/a> of my book, Liberal Fascism<\/em>, in The American Prospect<\/em> was the sort of “shallow, cliché ridden, attack-the-messenger stuff that I would expect Ezra to find so persuasive.” But it turned out I’d misquoted Neiwert, for which I apologized. I also said I was bleary from the slog of promoting the book and maybe I was too harsh. Well, now — as they used to say of Nixon — I’m tanned, rested and ready (minus the tan). So with fresh eyes let me say that Neiwert’s review is the sort of shallow, cliché ridden, attack-the-messenger<\/strong> stuff that I would expect Ezra to find so persuasive.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I love the phrase, "attack-the-messenger" as it is here quite inappropriate.  One attacks the messenger who is merely bringing bad news–you attack the journalist who reports on bad news.  This book isn't a work of journalism, and Goldberg isn't a messenger. <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you look at the website for Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, you'll find a lot of email from alienated college students, praising the bold and cogent thesis of the book, and commending its author for the way he handled himself on A Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  You'll also find its author responding to negative … Continue reading Five thumbs up<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,36,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ad-hominem-abusive","category-circumstantial","category-goldberg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}