Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Errors in Logic, Additional Pantload Edition

"As much as it may shock some, I'm not the first person to set the record straight. Maybe those authors didn't penetrate the public debate because they tend to write books titled "Illiberal Policymaking and Culture Formation, the Anglo-American Experience, 1912-2007." If I'd followed their example, no one would be buying my book, reading it or discussing it. And, you can be sure, I wouldn't have been invited on to "The Daily Show" to get smacked around for 20 minutes."

Jonah, you didn't get smacked around for twenty minutes on A Daily Show because you wrote a brave and thoroughly researched historical treatise that blows wide the conspiracy of neo-classical, liberal-inspired, free-market fascism or however the fuck you choose to rebrand progressive politics. You were verbally beat down because you wrote a steaming pile of soggy garbage that flies merrily on your own gaseous emissions and completely in the face of the facts. Your entire book is a longer version of the playground "I know you are but what am I" defense. You redefine liberal more times in your book and that interview than Michael Jackson has redefined his nose.

If you had performed due diligence and written a piece of historical analysis with sources and citations worth the paper they were printed on, you would have written a very different book indeed. I suspect that you also would have been treatd very differently by Jon Stewart. However, you chose instead to rely on conjecture, assertions and Harry Turtledove's alternative historical fiction. This would be fine were you writing a piece of fanfiction, but your book remains a sad and pathetic attempt at rebranding your political adversaries.

P.S. Your claim that many critics of your book have no authority or insufficient credentials to discredit your book is patently false. You have received no advanced degrees and are not fit to include yourself in the ranks of any scholarly cadres.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Errors in grammar too. Let's begin with his first wonky-wonk paragraph in the LA Times (shame on you for hiring this dude) that includes:

If that's the case, you probably missed me and Jon Stewart playing Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots last week.

I will wait for Becky and Brando to weigh in on this, but my Bubie's dear friend was also my 6th grade English teacher was clear back in the days of classroom yore and before she had cancer and passed away about 10 years ago that me/I always comes after my friends and foes in a sentence.

Unless B-thriced (baby!) suggest AG is wrong, and I may be, I have to wonder about an author who cannot master the basic tenets of the English language. AG, she is no writer and professes not to be one. Pantload boy on the other hand...

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

Unfortunately, I think doughbob has been tasked with being the kamikaze pilot on this one.

He's been sent out with a load of tripe, knowing that he'd fail the masquerade as a serious author, and fail miserably.

This give us liberals two options (three, actually, but his response to two of them is the same): We can ignore his steaming load, or mock it mercilessly (a la Sadly No) in which case he claims there are no liberals willing to debate 'the issues ' with him; or we can try to refute his argument, which is so incoherent and logically inconsistent that it defies refutation, just like PeeWee Herman shouting "I know you are but what am I?"

either way, the Overton window is shifted yet again rightward.

What is the worst is that he was sent on this fool's mission by his boss and his mother, who think so little of him that they are perfectly happy sacrificing Jonah's meager ego in a political ploy for a slightly improved strategic position.

My inclination is to stick with mockery.

Brando said...

AG is correct on teh grammar. However, Jonah is just trying to show that he's not bound by the rules of grammar any more than he is by the bounds of logic.

What kills me is that he chose a very inflammatory title for his book, then acts surprised when people are pissed off about it.

What kills me is, right at the beginning of the book, he says he doesn't really have a concrete definition of fascism. So he's going to say that liberalism really stems from fascism, even though he can't really define what fascism is. How the fuck can he do that with a straight face?

Anonymous said...

Whew, I thought Mrs. D. was pretty clear about that.

What kills me...

is that he uses every pathetic chance he can to hype his book to make money. Like AG could see him at Best Buy tonight and he'd be all, Nice to meet you. How do you like that CD you are buying. You know, I wrote a book.
He's like a friggin' walking billboard. Except what he's sell, nobody is buying.


Toadmunch.