Goldberg on MSNBC: "Hillary Clinton is essentially like the agricultural minister from the Soviet Politburo"
SUMMARY: On Morning Joe, Jonah Goldberg stated: "Hillary Clinton is essentially like the agricultural minister from the Soviet Politburo in 1976. She's sort of, you know, the product of a sort of bureaucratic, Walter Mondale machine, 'check off the right constituencies' kind of thing."
On the January 17 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, discussing the Democratic presidential campaign with hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, National Review Online editor at large Jonah Goldberg stated: "[Sen.] Hillary Clinton [D-NY] is essentially like the agricultural minister from the Soviet Politburo in 1976. She's sort of, you know, the product of a sort of bureaucratic, Walter Mondale machine, 'check off the right constituencies' kind of thing." Scarborough later said: "You know, I love Jonah Goldberg." Referring to Goldberg's book Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning (Doubleday, January 2008), Scarborough added, "And Jonah, when -- hopefully we can get you in-studio next week to talk about this book."
A week earlier, during an appearance on the January 10 edition of Morning Joe, Goldberg suggested ties between Benito Mussolini and the American liberal movement, leading Scarborough to ask, "But you're not suggesting in this book though that you can draw a line from Mussolini to Hillary Clinton or Mussolini to [Sen.] Barack Obama [D-IL], are you?" Goldberg replied: "Well, I'm saying you can draw a line, but it's not a straight one. It goes all sorts of different places. I'm not saying that today's liberalism is the son of Nazism or the son of Italian fascism. I'm saying it's sort of like the great-grandniece once removed." He added, "They have some common DNA, some common themes, some family resemblances that come up."
From the January 17 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe:
BRZEZINSKI: Let me ask you about that then, because being the right guy at the right moment in terms of what people want: Tell us your theory.
SCARBOROUGH: About?
BRZEZINSKI: Optimism.
SCARBOROUGH: Oh, yeah. I mean, that's the thing. And you wrote an interesting column on Obama, but the thing that I found in Iowa and the thing that I found in New Hampshire, going to these events, listening to Barack Obama, I can't remember a candidate that was as optimistic as Obama unless you go back to Ronald Reagan.
And he -- you know, he's not -- his speeches aren't divisive. He's not talking about what's wrong with America. He's talking about where America can go. Is that an optimistic message that, if Obama wins the Democratic nomination -- I still think that's a bit of a long shot -- do you think that's a message that Middle America will buy into like all those white voters in Iowa?
GOLDBERG: I think so. I certainly think that's sort of at the heart of the Obama strategy. And I think you're right. He's very good at it. Americans are an optimistic, forward-looking people, and they like to see that in their politicians.
You know, and Hillary Clinton is essentially like the agricultural minister from the Soviet Politburo in 1976. She's sort of, you know, the product of a sort of bureaucratic, Walter Mondale machine, "check off the right constituencies" kind of thing, and Obama represents this sort of new page for the Democratic Party. And I think a lot of people really want the Democratic Party to turn a new page, much like they want the Republican Party to. And so I think that that helps Obama a lot.
I think as political strategy, it's going to run into more problems than people think. I mean, already we've seen, when he has disagreements with Hillary Clinton, the charges of racism fly. Now, what is going to happen when he's running against a Republican nominee? You know, he says his whole pitch in the primaries is he's going to reach out to Republicans, reach out to independents, bridge build -- build bridges, hold hands, march up the hillside of history, and buy everyone a Coke and all that stuff, singing "Kumbaya." But at the end of the day, he's going to have to point out he has differences with the Republicans, and all of a sudden, he's either going to look like a hypocrite by promising unity while at the same time being divisive or he's just going to get beaten senseless by the Republicans while he's talking about hope and they're pointing out how liberal he is.
SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, you know, I love Jonah Goldberg.
BRZEZINSKI: Yeah.
SCARBOROUGH: But I have another reason to love him.
BRZEZINSKI: What?
SCARBOROUGH: Anybody who in 2008 can bring up a reference to a Coke commercial that ran in 1971.
BRZEZINSKI: Yeah.
SCARBOROUGH: "I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony." That's my man.
BRZEZINSKI: Well, I just can't get over -- my heart goes pitter-patter over the cover of his book.
SCARBOROUGH: I love the cover of his book.
BRZEZINSKI: And the title. Let me read it to you.
SCARBOROUGH: Here we go.
BRZEZINSKI: Here we go. Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. And then it has a happy face.
SCARBOROUGH: I love the happy face. And Jonah, when -- hopefully we can get you in-studio next week to talk about this book.
BRZEZINSKI: Absolutely.
GOLDBERG: Love to.
SCARBOROUGH: We greatly appreciate you being here, though --
GOLDBERG: Thank you.
SCARBOROUGH: -- and dissecting the race. We'll see you next week.
GOLDBERG: OK.
BRZEZINSKI: Thank you, Jonah.
SCARBOROUGH: He's great.
BRZEZINSKI: Oh, my gosh.
Okay... does this guy even know what fascism means? Check out the list - every one sounds like the current Bush regime. This is when you realize that these loudmouths are truly morons.
The following day though, Goldberg made plenty of time for the friendly confines of the Sean Hannity show.
Hartmann is pretty awesome.
He really is. If anything I'd like to see Hartmann with his on tv show, perhaps after Olbermann. I think he would draw in more viewers than Olbermann since he often invites people who don't share his same political beliefs on for debates. He's a very smart man and down to earth too!
"I'm not saying that today's liberalism is the son of Nazism or the son of Italian fascism."
I'm letting the cover, title and subtitle of my book say it for me.
Here we go again, "Fascism" meaning anything you want it to, as seen by the contradiction of two definitions you provided:
Political philosophy that became predominant in Italy and then Germany during the 1920s and 1930s; attacked weakness of democracy, (and) corruption of capitalism;
a political system in which all power of government is vested in a person or group with no other power to balance and limit the activities of the government. Fascist governments are often closely associated with large corporations and sometimes with extreme nationalism and racist activities. ...
That second definition was clearly written toward governments like the current administration and not toward, say, Hitler's.
Hey, gotta cut Jonah some slack ...It can't be easy being Lucianne Goldberg's kid.
He grew up listening to right-wing crapola, and it's left him a little challenged.
"I'm letting the cover, title and subtitle of my book say 'it' for me."
Say what? There is NO SUCH THING as "liberal fascism", in fact, liberalism is the antithesis of fascism. Project much?
Regardless of the true meaning of the word ‘fascism’, it evokes images of the WW2 era Italian and German governments whose dominant feature was a militant racialist nationalism. The so-called Left in America is not moving in that direction. I see this book as an ideologically based swiftboating of the Democratic Party. That is, he demeans one of the Democrats or Left’s basic strengths relative to the GOP, which is that the GOP truly is fascist leaning. Therefore, he attempts to tar the Democrats with same the same brush to level the PR playing field, to muddy the waters so the distinctions between the two parties are less clear.
Goldberg is essentially a moronic blowhard
Nice spin, Jonah. Pointing out honest differences in values is the cornerstone of dealing with each other in good faith. I don't believe that Obama is promising unity as much as he is promising everyone gets to have their say in the matter of our future. Given the with us or against us mentality of the Bush era, that kind of participation is a welcome change. Novel concept, eh Jonah?
I'm glad the Jon Stewarts and Hartmann's of the world are tearing Goldberg's ridiculous book apart, but shame on Joe and Mika. She just couldn't "get over" Bob Johnson's BS explanation for his Obama jab when interviewing Clinton surrogates a few days ago, and now she LOVES Goldberg's book cover and doesn't even challenge his BS? She is a joke, a privileged daughter with not much to say. Too bad John Ridley isn't on with Joe more in the mornings. He's a much better analyst than she'll ever be.
Joe didn't buy much of what Goldberg said regarding tying current democrats to fascits, but he didn't do much to refute his BS either. (Secretly, he wants to be some of what Goldberg says is true)
If I had one criticism of this item it's that it is misleading to put the "Scarborough later said" he "love[s] Jonah Goldberg" in here without the proper context: that he loved Goldberg's reference to an old 1971 Coke ad when talking about what he thinks Obama's political strategy will be in 2008.
I challenged Goldberg 3 and a half years ago when he lied and took John Kerry's comment about the US goal of reducing terrorism (if we can't outright terminate it for good) to being a "nuisance." Goldberg said in a column (which MMFA's called BS on) that Kerry called terrorists a nuisance. Anyone here remember that? I emailed him, criticized his column, then he told me he didn't take Kerry out of context and said NEVER to email him again (I did, under another address!).
He and others in the extreme wing of the Republican party don't understand that fascism is relegated to the 20st century and can not be applied to modern times, Americans nor even jihadists/terrorists. In other words, there is no such thing as "Islamofascism." Only in their corrupt minds, there is.
'Contrary to what most people think, the Nazis were ardent socialists (hence the term “National socialism”). They believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public education. They purged the church from public policy, promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily life. The Nazis declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in their universities—where campus speech codes were all the rage. The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was an animal rights activist.'
nope, no similarity whatsoever...
As to the logic of your superficial comparisons it would be just as feasible to say that Hitler had a mustache, therefore all mustachioed men are fascists (John Bolton, anyone?)
You're pathetic and your Republican hitmen are pathetic. I'm not suprised that the right want to talk about anything except their record. It's been a record of failure after failure. Try again.
And if you believe Goldberg isn't trying to villify modern liberals in general and modern progressives in particular, then you really are not being honest.
They promised jobs, but not for everybody. Not for women. And not for Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, or the handicapped.
Abortion? Not for Aryan wmen! Euthanasia! To the tune of about 6 million.
None of those were governed by the desire of the individual. There's a BIG difference.
What the Nazis promised and what they delivered were two different things.
Think for a second: Germany was in the midst of economic catastrophe: hyperinflation, massive unemployment, starvation. Would a party seeking power at all costs tout free market theory to the masses? They were going to promise them jobs--even if it turned out the jobs were in the Wehrmacht.
The National Socialists never offered community controlled anything. Socialism is not state control: it's control by society--hence the name 'socialism.'
If state control were socialism, thenthe Russian Tsars were socialists, as were the Emperors of China, who legally owned the country and dispersed favors, appointments, mansions and jobs at will.
You have decided to define socialism as everything that is not ownership by individuals and corporations. That's nonsense. Absolute Monarchy and tyranny are not socialism because they're not socialism.
Nazism nationalized no industries, confiscated no property--except for that owned by 'subhumans.' Krupp, Hoechst, I.G. Farben and Bayer all remained in the hands of the previous owners,and they still profited by them. Ardent Socialism?
By your definition, mobilizing an army is a socialist act. Going to war is asocialist act by definition, because it's suborning individual and corporate and individual power .
So the socialist American Army and the socialist British army and the socialist Russian army got together to fight the socislist German army and the socialist Italian army and the socialist Japanese army.
All hail vistorious socialism!
You're an idiot.
This is what you get when blatantly ignorant and uneducated people get to power. Their posterior kissers come out all over the place, as ignorant and uneducated as their owners. They start throwing around "$19.99" words like if they know what they mean, and this goes to show who were the "children left behind".
Our prez doesn't have an even mediocre grasp on our vocabulary, therefore he invents new words, and that's bad. The reptiles that populate the airways don't even know what "vocabulary" is, therefore they spit venom instead of words, and that's worse.
To Jumboburrito last comment, Goldberg should not be compared with Goebbels. Goebbels was a master in the art of using words and images to get to the heart of those dark feelings humans have. That's why the Nazis were able to go as far as they did with their despicable doctrine with the support of a nation. I was going to say that Goldberg wishes he could be like Goebbels, but if he doesn't know what Facism is, then it is imposible that he knows who Goebbels was.
Jonah Goldberg has written a book associating liberalism with fascism
He has compared Hillary Clinton, who he sees as a liberal, with some unnamed communist figure.
He made is clear he disapproves of using words like fascism gratuitously.
It seems pretty clear Goldberg is using name-calling to insult people and won't hesitate for a minute to contradict himself.