“Scott McLemee”:http://www.mclemee.com/id4.html (Scott doesn’t do the permalinks thing, so this is liable to disappear sooner or later…).
bq. This summer, Jonah Goldberg is publishing a book.
bq. It hardly seems fair. Shouldn’t he have to read one, first?
{ 15 comments }
Seth Finkelstein 02.14.06 at 7:54 pm
And who’s writing it?
Iron Lungfish 02.14.06 at 9:09 pm
This summer, Jonah Goldberg is publishing a book.
This is the one about how liberals are Nazis because they don’t want to torture people, invade other countries at random, and allow for massive, unchecked executive power, right?
Hei Lun Chan 02.14.06 at 9:12 pm
I’ve never seen someone make that joke before. Henry must be easy to please if he thinks that deserves an “ouch”.
FMguru 02.14.06 at 9:31 pm
And who’s writing it?
Judging by his “blegging” on NRO, it looks like his readers wrote about 80% of it. I always wondered if that Tom Sawyer/Whitewash trick would work in real life. Apparently, it does.
scott mclemee 02.14.06 at 9:48 pm
I don’t think Henry is saying “ouch” at perceiving any Algonquin Round Table-quality in my squib, as such — but rather at the gasbaggery of its target.
As somebody else put it, Goldberg seems to find Cliff’s Notes taxing.
Seth Finkelstein 02.14.06 at 10:02 pm
Iron Lungfish: He’s already mastered “Ignorance Is Strength”, so “liberals are Nazis” is a snap (as well as “Up Is Down” and “Black Is White”).
Kieran Healy 02.14.06 at 10:29 pm
I imagine the book will fill a needed gap in the literature on fascism.
Martin James 02.15.06 at 12:30 am
Cute cover.
abb1 02.15.06 at 2:56 am
Shouldn’t he have to read one, first?
He is not a reader, he’s a writer.
H.O.F. 02.15.06 at 5:41 am
Yeah, but not much of one.
Simstim 02.15.06 at 7:24 am
I prefer Garth Marenghi’s boast that he’s “written more books than he’s read.”
Nat Whilk 02.15.06 at 1:27 pm
This is the same sort of silliness that goes on on fan boards for (American) college football teams. Stale jokes are perceived as funny when targeted at fans/players/coaches of Rival U., even if they have no substantial basis in reality. Whether you care to admit it or not, Jonah has read lots of books. He does bleg a lot, but those blegs aren’t for others to read or write for him but for academics like us to look up things for him for free using our connections. So say that Jonah uses NRO readers as free research assistants if you like. It’s not as mean as saying that he hasn’t read a book, but it at least as the advantage of having some truth to it, in case that matters to you.
Matt Weiner 02.15.06 at 6:02 pm
Nat, the joke may be stale, but I think Goldberg is an unusually apposite target for it. He seems to have admitted that he wasn’t going to read some specific stuff that the book required him to read. Maybe he was just sloppy with his anaphora, but that reads different from “I read the Spencer, but I’m no expert, so I want to pick your brains to see if I’m way off base.”
Not that I think this is a big deal — Goldberg’s lack of knowledge of Spencer is surely the least of this book’s flaws.
Matt Weiner 02.15.06 at 6:32 pm
I mean, I’m about to send off a paper that contains a bit of bluffing about literature I haven’t read as thoroughly as I ought, but I wouldn’t admit that on the internet. That’s just hubris.
derrida derider 02.15.06 at 6:40 pm
Yeah, a variant of an old joke (Bright Young Thing to Tallulah Bankhead “I liked your new book. Who wrote it for you?” Bankhead: “Oh, I’m so glad you liked it. Who read it to you?”).
But still, well phrased and very apposite.
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