The Daily Hatch

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Yesterday, I interviewed Jonah Goldberg about his new book, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning.

What follows is a slightly edited transcript of our conversation.

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If you were going to give people a 30 second explanation of why they should buy your book, what would you tell them?

The primary reason someone should buy my book is because it’s the first book to put all in one place the stuff that is left out of the history books and the narrative that we’ve heard for the last 70 years. It corrects the record about the slander that has been aimed at conservatives for a half century — that we are fascists, that we are Nazis. Even if you disagree with a lot of the arguments, I think most, if not all fair minded readers will concede that they learned a lot from it. I am not winging it. Every claim is backed up by facts, by footnotes. Every argument marshals evidence to support it. If you disagree with everything, even if you think liberalism is still the best thing that we have for bettering society…I think that you’ll be better armed to make your case because you’ll at least know the downside of your own intellectual history. You’ll know the darker side of progressivism. In an age where Hillary Clinton is saying that…she’s a progressive, I think it’s pretty important to understand what progressivism was and what its ultimate aims and impulses are.

Do you regularly or semi-regularly read any blogs you’d like to recommend to RWN’s readers?

I’m not reading anything right now because of the book tour, but all the obvious ones. The National Review blogs, The Corner, The Campaign Spot, that kind of thing. I obviously check out Instapundit and my mom’s site, Lucianne.

The problem is, whenever I am asked this question, I get in more trouble for the blogs that I don’t mention than the ones that I do, (laughs). So, Ross Douthat has always had some fascinating and interesting things to say. I think Mickey Kaus, even though he’s a liberal, is the best guy out there at dissecting the really fine point stuff, like how the New York Times covers things. It’s useful. I think (bloggers) do great stuff…

Well Jonah, thanks a lot…

Great, I appreciate it!

Liberal Fascism Q-A (3)

Uploaded by TylerNull on Feb 17, 2008