The supermarket checkout tabloid election continues...

For one brief and fleeting moment I find myself actually agreeing with at least one thing Maximus Pantload has to say:

The biggest “prize” so far in the quest to destroy Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s vice-presidential candidacy is the “news” that her unmarried daughter is pregnant. I have little to say about that because I don’t think the press should be saying much more about it.

If, (and that's a big IF), that was all that people were pointing at, Goldberg would have a point. However, coming from someone whose career was launched bartering information in an attempt to generate an international incident out of a blow-job, it reeks of Goldbergesque conservative hypocrisy. Then...

But what is remarkable is how little that or other revelations matter to the GOP rank and file. Simply put: They love Sarah.

It is quite remarkable, isn't it? Especially since there isn't a substantive thing any of them can actually identify as being a factor which would actually make her presidential material. Let's be right up front here. The Goldberg-identified GOP rank and file, if they truly "love Sarah", aren't looking past the illusion any more than the press Goldberg chastizes. Substance? Who needs it?

While Goldberg attempts to dismiss efforts to dig into the personal and family affairs of Sarah Palin, he might be reminded that that is all Palin has brought to the GOP. The first one-third of her speech was all about her, her family, the PTA and the fact that she's a hockey-mom. If that's what she's selling then you can expect people to check out that aspect of the product. And you can expect the tabloids to go through gallons of midnight oil looking for dirt.

That's something with which Goldberg should be intimately familiar. Given that his mother, masquerading as a reporter on the McGovern campaign in 1972, turned out to be a spy working for Nixon campaign dirt-merchant Murray Chotiner, earning $1000 a week to report back to the Nixon campaign, in her own words, "... really dirty stuff. Who was sleeping with who, what the Secret Service men were doing with the stewardesses, who was smoking pot on the plane--that sort of thing."

The media scrutiny of Palin pales in comparison to the sewer diving exploits of the Goldberg clan.

Palin's speech, beyond all the gooey family references, was a rolling barrage of lies and exaggerations. Easily picked apart, it will send the tabloids searching for more. And they're going to go for the titillating stuff that sells at the checkout. The Goldbergs helped create that environment. It was and is their stock in trade.

Perhaps though, it's worth looking at something in the speech prepared for Palin. The writer tried to make a connection.

Long ago, a young farmer and a haberdasher from Missouri, he followed an unlikely path -- (cheers) -- he followed an unlikely path to the vice presidency.

She compared herself to Harry S. Truman, and described his ascendency to the vice presidency and (through allusion) the presidency as unlikely. As unlikely as the position she finds herself in but, hey, look at what Truman did.

Not so unlikely. At least not on Truman's part.

By the time Truman had been selected as Roosevelt's running mate in 1944 he had been a US senator for 10 years. In the middle of the 2nd World War, Truman chaired the US Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, also known as the Truman Committee. Essentially aimed at creating greater efficiency in military procurement, it was best known for slamming war-profiteers and saving the United States no less than $15 billion while they were engaged in total war and industrial output was on a full war footing. By 1943, Truman's face had appeared on the cover of Time magazine. American's knew who he was and his committee was lauded as a major success.

When Truman was selected as Roosevelt's running mate he had the endorsement of all the key players in the Democratic National Committee including that of the outgoing and incoming chairmen. Further, the DNC was fully aware that Franklin Roosevelt was in ill-health and that Roosevelt's vice presidential pick would probably finish his term as president. In fact, Roosevelt dumped Henry Wallace, the incumbent vice president, to put Truman on the ticket, a clear message that he was seriously concerned about the qualifications and political symmetry of his successor while the country was still in the depths of a world war.

McCain can hardly say the same for his pick.

Truman was honest, diligent, a known quantity and selected specifically for his abilities. Palin, by comparison is a campaign stunt intended to put a Hollywood paint job on a crumbling Republican movie set. As Jezebel puts it, she's viagra for an RNC limp dick.

By the time a person is selected as the possible successor for the prospective holder of the nuclear launch codes, offering one's membership on an elementary school PTA simply does not cut it as a valid credential and certainly doesn't compare to the route taken by a much more substantial and skilled politician.

Goldberg could get rich on this

Notice that The Doughy Pantload's serious tome has made the big time. As of the time of writing, it was Number 1 - in the Humor category.

Get there quick. I'm sure he'll whine and cry enough to get that changed.

Jon Stewart does Teh Pantload

Damn! I'm probably going to miss this. Jonah Goldberg, plugging his book cover filled with paper, showed up on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

NEW YORK Columnist Jonah Goldberg stopped by Comedy Central's "Daily Show" on Wednesday night to tout his provocative new book, "Liberal Fascism." Jon Stewart clearly didn't buy the premise, asking at one point in exasperation, "Organic food is fascist???" and "I must say you totally misrepresent what progressive means."

Apparently the taping went on so long, and with so many nuggets, that (as Stewart had warned) some of it had to be aired in choppy sound bites.

Most touchy moment for Jonah came when Stewart asked him if one of the things he was against was people throwing around the charge "fascism" far too easily. Jonah said yes, then Stewart picked up a copy of the book and simply pointed to the title, "Liberal Fascism" -- adding, so why are you doing this?

Goldberg got angry at one point and accused Stewart of not reading his book.

Hopefully I'll be able to catch it on the Daily Show website tomorrow.

Google Bombs Jon Swift; Goldberg runs for the bunker

Brad, at Sadly, No! forwards this report.

Welp, Jonah’s fanboy army of Cheeto-stained wretches have successfully managed to pressure Google into removing Jon Swift’s ingenious post on Liberal Fascism from Google search results. Weak sauce, peeps. Go over to Jon’s blog and give him your support. Google’s Webmaster Blog can be found here. If you wish, you may go there and tell them what you think about the removal of Mr. Swift’s post. Solidarity, bee-yotchez.

Now, the thing with pages which Jonah Goldberg assembled, and retitled an amazing number of times, has undergone a complete necropsy so there is very little point in adding further to the evisceration already carried out by others in such a neat and complete fashion.

The problem is that our good friend Jon Swift did nothing if not to attempt to assist Goldberg. The post which Google has removed from its index was written back in June... before Goldberg even started assembling the words completed his novel piece of revisionist history. Jon has taken an unjustifiable and odious hit from Google. They have, without consideration for the fact that his post has 97 links to it, totally removed his post from the index... without so much as an explanation. Inversely, Google has given The National Review's The Corner, a ranking it has not earned since it has no links.

It all looks like Google is in Jonah Goldberg's corner and they are promoting his revisionist piece of garbage while trying to hide any criticism, or, in the case of Jon Swift, literary assistance. Jon explains:

I believe it may have something to do with this post: "What If a Googlebomb Is a Googledud?" which referred to the attempt to Googlebomb "Liberal Fascism" by linking to my piece but did not mention the Urban Dictionary Googlebomb. Both Jonah Goldberg and Instapundit linked to that post, which no doubt resulted in a number of complaints sent to Google. The only explanation I can come up with is that Google responded to complaints by manually editing the results, something they claim they try never to do.

A point made by Google itself. (Themselves?)

We don't condone the practice of googlebombing, or any other action that seeks to affect the integrity of our search results, but we're also reluctant to alter our results by hand in order to prevent such items from showing up.

Apparently, Google is not as reluctant as they claim. Jon's post is gone from the Google index and the blathering fuckwad still has a Google page ranking for searches of Liberal Fascism which far exceeds its worth.

Back to the thing produced by Goldberg known by his fans as a book. As Goldberg's interview with Alex Koppelman was concluding, this exchange took place. (Koppelman in bold.)

And you say you're not calling liberals Nazis, but...

I must say it 25 times in the book.

No shit?! How about that.

Yeah. But the cover has the smiley face with the Hitler mustache. Does that undermine that message and lead to some of these reactions?

You're going to love this answer.

Well, I'm perfectly glad to concede that people who do judge books by their covers or think it's more important to read a title rather than read a book will be confused and jump to conclusions. But these are people that I don't generally respect.

Waitaminute, waitaminute, waitaminute! For three years, three fucking years, all we've had is the cover with that picture and the linkage of Hitler, Mussolini, Liberal and Fascism in one location. There was no book. What Goldberg did was take a cover that's been hanging about in book sales sites for three years and fill it with paper.

And as for not respecting people who "judge the book by it's cover", Goldberg has managed to prove that he only holds two positions. Lack of respect for those who don't get past the wearisome cover and read his book, or fear, as he crawls into the bunker to try and avoid those who have read it and find that the cover is actually very representative of the contents.

What's almost pathetically amusing about this is that we're talking about a book whose stated purpose is to make conservatives look less like fascists. And of course, its end result is very much the opposite.

Which is a serious person's assessment of Goldberg... I mean his "book". Because Goldberg is all about serious readers and serious persons.

And if you can't get past the cover and the title, then you're not a serious book reader and you're not really a serious person.

Yeah well, I reiterate, there was nothing past the cover and the title. For three years all we had was a smiley face with a Hitler mustache, a title that changed on the same schedule as Goldberg's fast food orders and empty space. Now he expects people to take him seriously?

Right. And when things get a little hot and his "book" gets torn to shreds, Jonah calls in the cheeto-dust army.

Interestingly, I found someone who seems to have some knowledge of Goldberg. Back in the day, Goldberg attended college. In fact, Goucher college, which had, up to the time just before his acceptance there, been an all female institution. Goldberg was a "quota-boy" who only got in as a result of Affirmative Action - something he is all too ready to diss whenever the opportunity arises.

Goucher alumnae have a Livejournal page has an interesting comment.

Goucher bloggers
Within two years, Goucher produced two bloggers on two wildly different webistes: Cristina Page '93 on Huffington Post Jonah Goldberg '91 on National Review Online Neither of their bios mentions Goucher, though Jonah's Wikipedia entry does. That's right, folks, Jonah Goldberg has a Wikipedia entry. Creepy.

Heh! Seems Goldberg leaves that kind of impression wherever he goes.

Update: I had meant to add this to the original post. One of the commenters over at Balloon Juice has neatly labeled Goldberg. It's called the Goldberg principle and it explains everything:

You can prove any thesis to be true if you make up your own definitions of words.

BUSTED!! : I had always suspected Goldberg wrote this from information he gathered out of his ass between super bacon double cheeseburgers.

Here he provides comment on the request that he should have included in his tome of fascist history the Blue Shirts of China or Mosley's Silver Shirts.

Any serious historian who had done any amount of research would have addressed that quickly by pointing out that Mosely's "Silver Shirts" were a work of fiction in an alternative history written by Harry Turtledove. In short, Turtledove was writing what could have been had the Germans actually won and occupied Britain.

Does Goldberg dispatch the idea for it's lack of historical accuracy? Nooo. Instead he treats it as a fact which he chose not to include.

There is also the fact that when confronted with quotations from Mussolini, (Hey! He's mentioned in the title of the book!), Goldberg quickly excused his lack of knowledge by attempting to steer away from an answer, not the least of which was an admission that he hadn't read one of Mussolini's more important works in over three years.

Great research Goldberg. Just great.

Jonah Goldberg promotes his latest roll

The Doughy Pantload writes a book, after having taken several Friedman units to complete it. (You will scroll down to item 10. Then you should go back and read the entire post.)

And then Lucianne's spoiled little brat goes on an internet book promotion spree which Chet captured in all its literary glory.

Goldberg should be worried. Kenn Fischburg has not only out-written Goldberg, but he probably won't even give the Pantload's new title a passing mention in his encyclopedia.

So... the "Media Conservatives" don't like Ron Paul. That means he is deserving of a second look.

I don't really have an opinion of Ron Paul, Republican presidential hopeful, but when I see this coming out of the Doughy Pantload, Paul becomes worth a second look.

As the hopeless but energetic presidential campaign of Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) builds momentum in name recognition, fundraising and cross-ideology appeal, media conservatives are beginning to attack Paul in earnest.

Media conservatives? Who are they?

When I see Goldberg using up his valuable column inches to focus on one person, I see fear. Jonah and his "media conservatives" are afraid of Ron Paul.

And they should be. Paul, apparently, understands who the "media conservatives" really are: Pant's pissing babies who hate people for not sharing in their fear. And it's not fear of "terrorist" attack. It's fear that they will be completely exposed and that their unearned privileged lives will be taken from them.

Continue please, Goldberg. You are so inept that you expose the flank of the "media conservatives". You make this easy.

And, because at least one reader would like to see something "softer" and less cutting, (That is not an insult to the the reader. It is respect for the sense of humour displayed.), I feel compelled to respond to Goldberg's column with something more graphic, but equally important and relevant.
Tip of the hat to Moderate Man for the Desiderius Erasmus reminder and Cheryl for the graphics.

The British Unsurge is working

Ian Welsh presents a good point that the presence of coalition troops in Iraq (and quite probably Afghanistan) is actually the disease, not the cure.

A case in point is the reaction of insurgent militias to the British withdrawal from the field in Iraq's Basra province.

The British army says violence in Basra has fallen by 90% since it withdrew from the southern Iraqi city earlier this year.

Around 500 British soldiers left one of Saddam Hussein's palaces in the heart of the city in early September and stopped conducting regular foot patrols.

A spokesman says the Iraqi security forces still come under attack from militants in Basra, but the overall level of violence is down 90% since the British troops left.

Britain is scheduled to return control of Basra province to Iraqi officials next month, officially ending Britain's combat role in Iraq.

This underscores the effect of two completely different strategies in dealing with the violence in Iraq. One being the US method of doing business, (beat them until we all bleed to death), the other being the British solution, (let's just back away and let them sort it out themselves).

The time has long past where we can continue to point fingers at the Bush administration and declare that the conditions in Iraq are a George W. Bush creation of his own making. We already know that and only a total idiot could argue otherwise. Our best hope is that someday, someone has the brass to haul Bush and his cohort into a court of law and charge them with waging aggressive war and all other associated crimes commensurate with the actions of a country attempting to expand beyond its direct control of peoples beyond it borders.

The so-called "Surge" is little more than an escalation. In order for it to be declared a success it requires attrition of insurgent militias on a scale which would leave them unable to regroup, re-man and re-arm. Few resistant insurgencies in history have ever been broken to the degree that they have been rendered totally inert.

The surge operation in Iraq, the concentration of troops intended to break the resistant militias, is faced with a problem the Bush administration is either unable or unwilling to comprehend. Even if General David Petraeus reaches a point where he can declare the operation a success, he must surely know that he can never win. Once the surge operation winds down, the militias will gear-up, unless Petraeus can assure everyone that absolutely none of the prime movers of those militias remain in place. The arithmetic is pretty basic.

The US modus operandi seems to have an associated message. Something along the line of, If you persist, we'll teach you a lesson you'll never forget.

The problem is, the resistant militias are aware of that lesson. They are prepared to continue anyway. Given the method of warfare the resistant militias employ, sending in more troops just enriches their targeting opportunities.

The long and short of it is, regardless of what Bush, Cheney, Gates and Petraeus think they are likely to accomplish, in the end there will still be groups of insurgents prepared to start the whole thing over again. The "Surge" will have the end result of having wasted lives, resources and riches for nothing more than achieving a delay in the inevitable. The factions that feed the insurgency will continue to vie for power.

The British have simply cut out the middle. With a longer history and some bitter lessons sewn onto regimental banners, they recognized that a persistent insurgency in Basra was not only something they could not defeat using typical patrol or cordon and search methods, but that employing those kinds of tactics was probably contributing to the problem. The very presence of the British army was the fuel which resistant groups needed to justify their campaign.

By removing themselves from the field, the British have reduced the opportunity for insurgent militias to strike and eliminated at least one vital reason for the existence of such groups. The British have employed a firefighting technique which always works. In the absence of overwhelming force (a principle which has never been applied in either the Iraq or Afghanistan occupations), find a way to eliminate one element of the tetrahedron which allows a fire to continue burning and the fire will go out.

While I hold no hope that the minds in the Bush administration can see anything beyond a misplaced belief that merely possessing the means to turn an entire country into a glass parking lot will cause them to eventually achieve dominion over Iraq, it's worth noting that they have yet to even try another method. While it is easily recognized that diplomacy and negotiation are beyond the intellectual and academic reach of the current US administration, at some point the realization that their current limited approach is only exacerbating the problem has to eventually hit home.

Having created the vacuum which allowed a resistant insurgency to flourish, they are now feeding it while, at the same time, attempting to quash it.

Of course, that methodology crawls up from the likes of vile Bush admin insiders like Michael Ledeen whose words are repeated as some form of holy mantra by the profoundly stupid.

The British method may not be perfect, but it is considerably more successful than the Bush method. So, why won't the US even attempt the British strategy? Easy. With depraved and penetratingly ignorant people in possession of an unearned and bequeathed journalistic platform saying things like this:

There is nothing we want to see happen in the Middle East that can be accomplished through talking around long tables festooned with bottled water and fresh fruit at Swiss hotels, that cannot be accomplished faster and more permanently through war. But there is plenty that cannot be achieved by such gabfests that can only be achieved through war.

There is little hope that the Bush administration, the prime audience of such remarkably hebetudinous thought, can see anything at the table beyond the water bottles and the fruit. Because they view all other persons at the table as culturally and militarily inferior. War works for the Bushs and the Goldbergs of this world because it requires a minimal expenditure of mental energy. And since they have very little to begin with, they can't afford to waste it on anything beyond the examination of their own navels.

The Pantload delays his famous unbook again.

Cathie has a great list of tags from Amazon.com in which potential customers describe Jonah Goldberg's attempt to write a book.

Far from Amazon removing the list, since Cathie posted it has actually grown!

There is another interesting note.

When we last visited Amazon to check on the Doughy Pantload's progress, in an attempt to destroy Christmas for his fellow wrapping-paper loving Republicans, the release date was to be December 26th, 2007.

That's changed.

Now Goldberg has pushed the date back even further to the right into 2008. With pre-orders having gone back into last year, and the U.S. dollar losing value on an almost daily basis, Canadians should be able to pick up a new copy, if it's ever completed, for about 45 cents.

Must be one helluva tome. I have an idea, Jonah: Why don't you just join Teh Army and write a book about that. Several different titles would work but, given your affinity for long, interchangeable titles, you might try, The Surge Diet. The secret to working off a fat ass from Fort Dix to Basra.

Since you mentioned Vietnam...

In the interest of promoting laziness, Jonah Goldberg offers himself up, once again, as a piece of low hanging fruit.

The mainstream media and a lot of liberal-leaning analysts seem to think it's politically foolish or reckless for Bush to compare Vietnam to Iraq because they have one very specific narrative in mind when it comes to that war: America shouldn't have gotten in, couldn't have won, and then lost. What they have long failed to grasp is that's not the moral of the story in the hearts of millions of Americans who believe that we could have won if wanted to and it was a disaster for American prestige and honor that we lost (whether we should have gone in is a murkier question for many, I think).

Millions of Americans? Well, yes. Given George W Bush's popularity, (or lack of it), at around 26%, and using the 2004 census figures indicating 216 million eligible voters, that would translate to about 56 million people. So, yes, millions of people, so blinded to the realities of today that they continue to support the worst administration in American history, quite likely do support the notion that the US could have won in Vietnam.

The question remains: Won what?

----------

In other Pantload news, Goldberg's long awaited and constantly delayed book now has an availability date of December 26th, 2007, so don't expect to find it in the stocking you hang by the chimney. By then, who knows what the title will be?

Why does Goldberg hate Christmas?

An opportunity to call Goldberg a wimp... to his face. (updated)

The Netherlands-registered MS Noordam will arrive in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada at 6 p.m. Pacific today. Without going into details, she's my kind of ship.

I think it is contingent upon certain members of Blogtopia (Yes, a term coined by Skippy) to make their way down to Ogden Point terminal and send a welcome note to one of the passengers. I know it might interfere with an otherwise pleasant long-weekend, but consider it an act in favour of the common good. Red Tory and Woman at Mile 0, might be well-placed to carry this off.

Go invite Jonah Goldberg ashore. Take him on a tour of a graveyard. The Veteran's Cemetery on the Gorge Vale Golf Course would work.

Then leave him there.

Let him try to find his own way back to the ship.

With any luck, he'll miss the midnight sailing and have to walk home.

Update: Categorize this under a day late. It has come to my attention that Victoria's Symphony Splash is taking place in the Inner Harbour tomorrow. One of the features of this event is the finale which highlights the Victoria Symphony Orchestra performing the 1812 overture. That's right - the one with the cannon fire in it. It would indeed be a treat to watch all those NRO chickenhawks crapping their diapers when the unannounced report of 12-pounder field guns reaches their ears.

But wait! All is not lost.

Tonight, the cadets of HMCS Quadra will be performing a Ceremony of the Flags on the grounds of the BC Legislature in Victoria. It includes a naval Sunset Ceremony and YES! Those 12-pounder guns are a part of it. That means that at a few minutes before 8:46 p.m. today, after the Guard of Honour fires three rounds of rifle fire, the gun crews will fire a 21 gun salute with their very loud field guns.

I hope there is room under the tables in the Pinnacle Grill for them. Just watching the reaction of Goldberg and crowd to those guns, which are spitting distance away from Noordam's berth, would be... priceless.



H/T Vanity Press

As we wait for volume three of the Bible...

Oh no. Jonah Goldberg has a problem. As we all wait for the greatest book ever written, he's having to deal with this:

Parenting Bleg [Jonah Goldberg]

Okay, so my four year old daughter desperately wants me to do more magic tricks. All I can really do for her are variations of "Hey, I found a quarter in your ear" stuff. And even then, the prestidigitation isn't really up to snuff. If she were five, she'd be on to me. So, I need really simple, stupid in fact, magic tricks that can be done with little skill, that will impress a four year-old. Any suggestions?

Luckily, James Wolcott, recognizing Goldberg's self-admitted limits, has the answer.

The Doughy Pantload is now free to join the US military

From Jonah Goldberg:

And Now for the TV Bad News

I am despondent that HBO's "Rome" is coming to an end. It has me more depressed than the upcoming end of the Sopranos, even though I don't relish that either.

There's much I don't like about HBO's politics and programming, but the simple fact is that much of the best stuff on TV is, without a doubt, on HBO.

We didn't know.

Had he just told us earlier, we would have understood. Goldberg was studying the history of Rome. Let's face it, few empires have had to deal with insurgencies to such an extent as the Romans.

It's all so clear. But, now that "Rome" is coming to an end, Goldberg will be free to take all this strategic and tactical knowledge he's acquired from HBO and offer his exceptional expertise to his favourite branch of the US military. I'm thinking he'll go for the Marines.

Here, Jonah, let me help you along. Just go here.

And don't worry about this guy. He doesn't understand that you were just getting boned up for your big day at the recruiting office. The greatest novel ever written can wait until you've defeated al Qaeda.

Don't forget to write burn an audio CD or something.

The irrelevance of Jonah Goldberg

Two years ago today The Doughy Pantload wrote this in reference to Juan Cole:

Anyway, I do think my judgment is superior to his when it comes to the big picture. So, I have an idea: Since he doesn't want to debate anything except his own brilliance, let's make a bet. I predict that Iraq won't have a civil war, that it will have a viable constitution, and that a majority of Iraqis and Americans will, in two years time, agree that the war was worth it.

That was, in part, a response to this from Juan Cole:

Goldberg is now saying that he did not challenge my knowledge of the Middle East, but my judgment. I take it he is saying that his judgment is superior to mine. But how would you tell whose judgment is superior? Of course, all this talk of "judgement" is code for "political agreement." Progressives think that other progressives have good judgment, conservatives think that other conservatives have good judgment. This is a tautology in reality. Goldberg believes that I am wrong because I disagree with him about X, and anyone who disagrees with him is wrong, and ipso facto lacks good judgment.

[...]

Although I do not believe that everyone who advocates a war must go and fight it, I do believe that young men who advocate a war must go and fight it. Goldberg was in his early 30s in 2002, and the army would have taken him. An older colleague who was at Harvard in 1941 told me about how the freshman class rushed to enlist. That was the characteristic of the Greatest Generation-- they put their money where their mouths were. Goldberg's response was insulting to all the soldiers fighting in Iraq who have suffered economically and who are remote from their families.

[...]

But Goldberg is just a dime a dozen pundit. Cranky rich people hire sharp-tongued and relatively uninformed young people all the time and put them on the mass media to badmouth the poor, spread bigotry, exalt mindless militarism, promote anti-intellectualism, and ensure generally that rightwing views come to predominate even among people who are harmed by such policies. One of their jobs is to marginalize progressives by smearing them as unreliable.

There was a bet... offered by Goldberg and soundly rejected by Cole. None of that matters.

What matters is that Iraq is in a civil war; Iraq's constitution isn't worth the paper it's printed on if the government doesn't function, and it doesn't; and, a majority of Iraqis and Americans view the unprovoked US invasion of Iraq as one of the biggest mistakes ever made.

Goldberg was perfectly wrong. Everything he predicted went precisely the other way. Juan Cole was not only right about Iraq, he was right about Goldberg.

Jonah Goldberg is reduced to the irrelevance of lawn mushroom. Coprinus comatus. A spore blown in from someone else's manure pile which grew, only to melt down into a black inky mess.

And he still hasn't joined the US military.

The CowardGoldberg responds

So, Jonah Goldberg is a coward. Go figure. After taking up the cause here, I sent off an email to the Doughy Pantload. To his credit, he actually replied and sent me to this link. To his detriment, he didn't add anything to the email except to say it was his final word on the subject.

Well, the deadline for the proposed bet is looming and various leftwing pests are clogging my email box saying if I have any honor I will pay up for a wager Cole refused to accept and denounced me for offering. Well, guess what? The baiting doesn't work. I will give money to war-related charities, as I have done in the past, on my schedule not that of these goads or Cole or anyone else. I will not announce it when I do it, which I have never done in the past because it's not anyone's business (even this post is somewhat sickening in that I'm even responding to these gadflies).

As a matter of intellectual honesty, I'm perfectly willing to admit that, had Cole had the courage to accept the wager, he would have won and I would have made good on it. But, since he didn't, I won't be jumping through hoops for this crowd beyond this post.

War-related charities? War-related??? Who the fuck are you trying to snow, Goldberg? No receipt; no proof. Although it would take but a few minutes to turn over the fact you donate to, ahem, political efforts provided they demonstrate the proper right-wing attributes.

Juan Cole didn't need courage to tell you to stuff your wager. And, as for whether you would have made good on it, we have but to take you at your word, although it remains hypothetical. I would recommend you don't use the term intellectual honesty when referring to yourself.

By the way Goldberg, have you visited a recruiting office yet? I love the different excuses you provide for not fighting the war you so adamantly promote.

By the way... how's that "superior judgment of the big picture" working out for you?

Fucking loser.

Hairy Fish Nuts has a question and he needs your help

Just dragging up a bit of stuff from the past:

Remember the Jonah Goldberg/Juan Cole wager? I do.

On 2/8/05, Goldberg wrote:

Anyway, I do think my judgment is superior to his [Juan Cole's] when it comes to the big picture. So, I have an idea: Since he doesn't want to debate anything except his own brilliance, let's make a bet. I predict that Iraq won't have a civil war, that it will have a viable constitution, and that a majority of Iraqis and Americans will, in two years time, agree that the war was worth it. I'll bet $1,000 (which I can hardly spare right now). This way neither of us can hide behind clever word play or CV reading. If there's another reasonable wager Cole wants to offer which would measure our judgment, I'm all ears. Money where your mouth is, doc.

Ummm, yeah! And Juan Cole's response was pretty straight forward. He basically called the Doughy Pantload what he is: a ghoul with no concern at all for the lives of Iraqis.

That's cool. Goldberg is, after all, a complete fucking idiot.

But, Hairy Fish Nuts thought he would actually check with Goldberg to see if HE was about to put his money where his mouth is. The only problem is, the Pantload is rejecting HFN's emails. I figure it's the relay, but who knows?

So, Hairy Fish Nuts is asking for a little bit of help. It would be a good thing.

The Doughy Pantload fills his diapers

I'm not sure why the Los Angeles Times bothers with Jonah Goldberg but I suppose his columns occasionally provide some comic relief from endless stories of misery and despair.

Golderg long ago lost any credibility as an authority on anything except sucking up to a moron but his latest column in the LA Times is once again a picture of the right-wing punditry chewing off their own arms and scratching at the dirt. This bit is simply amazing:

With last night's speech, President Bush made it clear that he will settle for nothing less than winning it. He may be deluding himself, and his plan may not work, but he at least has done the nation the courtesy of saying what his position is, despite an antagonistic political establishment and a hostile public. What is maddening is that the Democratic leadership cannot, or will not, clearly tell the American people whether they are the party of "end it" or "win it."

Where to start? Where to start?

OK, an interpretation. George Bush is deluding himself. His plan is lousy. But, hell, at least he told us all about it! And, he's got guts! Look how many people hate the whole idea - almost everybody. I George W. Bush. Anything that goes wrong is the Democrats' fault. I want my mommy. Can I have a pony?

Jeebus, does this guy ever quit?

Last night, Bush finally acknowledged what Americans already knew: The war has not gone well.

And Goldberg now believes that is courage. He doesn't get into the fact that Bush has been lying up to now by suggesting the situation in Iraq was coming up roses.

Goldberg's president - right or wrong. He won't let go. And, he's trying to shift the blame.

Since Goldberg kept dodging the recruiting office, since he continually pounded the desks of national talk-show hosts defending the reasons to invade Iraq, since he insists that he had an inside track on Bushco's Iraq strategy we can effectively and confidently say this:

It's your fault, shit-for-brains!

Do drop in with another column, Goldberg... when you have something intelligent to say. In the meantime we'll write off this latest little temper tantrum as yet another incontinent wanker who can't reconcile the picture of his hero on TV, scared, full of shit and having to admit to being a total fuck-up.

Wear it, Goldberg. It fits you well.