Sunday, December 30, 2007 :::
I'd like to apologize in advance to Jonah Goldberg for being disappointed with his book, coming out next week. I'm sure it's well-researched and well-written, but my expectations are almost certainly too high. I'll try to be satisfied if it's merely the most compelling, important, serious book of the last decade.
I'd like to take issue with Mark Levin's dismissal of praise from the left. I think that people too often react with contempt to the other side's works. Sometimes this is called for, as some people are more interested in peddling red meat to their side than in confronting an argument, more geared toward emotion than to reason — people like Ann Coulter, Michael Moore, Maureen Dowd, and often Bill O'Reilly. But when I say Jonah Goldberg has written a serious book, I'm speaking from at least as much information as a lot of leftists who are dismissing his book without argument. In his podcast interview with Glenn and Helen, he notes that there are some themes in the book with which he'd love to engage the left, and I hope they offer him the opportunity. (I'm sure Peter Beinart, at least, will oblige.)
::: posted by Steven at 8:33 PM
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