However much of a pass Obama continues to receive from nervous segments of the left, and however much the dopey carnival of the Big Limbuagh Tent is imitated by CNBC (See "The Daily Howler", almost daily), we should take a moment and glance at the possibly effective doorstops being thrust into our local booksellers by Hitch's old comrades on the "Bush in 2004" front. They publish, we parish.
There is a kick to the 90 proof wine of sour grapes in Bernard Goldberg's "A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (and Pathetic) Store of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media" that might even put Hitch under the table. Some selective truths here, to be sure. Yet Goldberg's shamelessness is such that he declares 2008 the most bias performance of the Press in history.
The "goring" of Al Gore in 2000, where the press put words in the candidates mouth and then, without giving examples, repeated called him a liar, somehow doesn't come up. Al of this is documented, again, with examples galore in "The Daily Howler", where Goldberg's antics have likewise been subjected to scrutiny. The one two punch of the right wing bully-boy, insulting with one hand and calling for civility (more in sadness than in anger, don't you know) gets the customary work out. Oh yeah, the six year free pass 9-11 somehow handed Bush is also missing in action in this tale of liberal bias.
Goldberg is occasionally funny and about as often makes a valid point. For those with the the stamina to venture deeper into the naked id of the raging conservovictim, there is the harrowing self-pity of Roger L. Simon's "Blacklisting Myself." If you ever suspected that those who spent nearly a decade on Monica Lewinsky jokes were actually fairly humor impaired (Simon once managed to make an unfunny film with Woody Allen and Bette Midler), your sorry confirmation awaits in these pages.
Simon takes the content free conservo-book into a new realm of soggy downlift. Because of the cruel talk about poor W, Simon can't even function in his social circles anymore; and he no longer joins the Paul Mazursky gang for coffee at The Farmer's Market. Taking this social critique of Obama era savagery down a nutball notch is Harry Stein's "I Can't Believe I'm Sitting Next To a Republican."
Poor Harry, he can't believe he has to confront leftists who won't even TALK to him anymore, because of his non-liberal views. Thank God, Harry even includes a list of local haunts were he can go talk to a strictly conservative clientele. That way, he doesn't have to talk to the people who won't even talk to him anymore. Along the way, he gets to avoid the views of "lunatics" like Noam Chomsky. Bonus points: the inevitable scene where a relative calls the right winger out on racism and of course has to back down, more in sadness than in anger.
Leading the pack in sales and feigned rationality is Mark Levin's "Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto" where we are given perhaps our last warning about the thumbscrews of the Estate Tax and the cruel rack of the social safety net. "Tyranny", I'll perhaps needlessly note, is a word applied as freely as the dance moves of a juiced up deadhead. Beyond that,there is the standard dubious account of our Founding Slaveholders. Hands off, of course, our wildly expensive socialist state within a state we call the Military. Because, you know, the Founding Fathers thought the Military should be huge and get whatever it wants without question.
The libertarian conservative is in a rather tricky place. Jesse Ventura talks about how both parties just want to take your money and spend it. Yet Bill Clinton did, seemingly, most of what a libertarian could rightfully ask for. Demonized by the left for cuts in social spending and plummeted by everyone else for assaulting Levin's poor little tyrannized super rich, he left the Country solvent and swimming in surpluses. Harry Stein's reaction to this was "anybody but a Democrat", as he now tries, like Hitchens, to weasel away from the global disaster of the W years.
Well, no talk show host, even in our newly uncivil world, will bring up such impolite matters to a man like Jesse. How about another Monica joke?
“The enemies of intolerance cannot be tolerant." • "If it is an offense to justice to hold people who may have been victims of mistaken identity or of vendettas by other factions, then it is also an offense to justice to release psychopathic killers who believe that they have divine permission to throw acid in the faces of girls who want to attend school." • "Don't be such a lesbian!
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