January 11, 2008

Jonah Goldberg

Or, when lefties attack. Back on December 24, Virginia Heffernan of the New York Times offered her Christmas gift to Ron Paul, desperately mainstreaming allegations from a U.S. Nazi leader (link):

[The Nazi leader claimed that] Both Congressman Paul and his aides regularly meet with members of the Stormfront set, American Renaissance, the Institute for Historic Review and others at the Tara Thai restaurant in Arlington, Va., usually on Wednesdays. This is part of a dinner that was originally organized by Pat Buchanan, Sam Francis and Joe Sobran, and has since been mostly taken over by the Council of Conservative Citizens.

Now, the post is prefaced with a correction (also in this December 26 entry), ending with this:

The post should not have been published with these unverified assertions and without any response from Paul.

Two days later on the 28th, Alternet published "White Supremacist Leader Insists Ron Paul Is Racist" (alternet.org/blogs/election08/71834/), which is bylined (literally) "Sara Robinson, Orcinus". The first links to her profile page at Alternet, the second to the site of David Neiwert. It contains similar charges to the New York Times post. Only at the very bottom is this:

UPDATE II Ron Paul's campaign spokesperson has refuted White's claims.

And, that update links to the NYT 12/27 post, i.e., a post with an earlier publication date. And, the NYT post makes it clear that it's an apology; the Alternet blurb does not. Even if the Alternet smear was written before the NYT post, it should never have been printed. And, the update should have been more detailed and placed in a more prominent position.

The extent to which Dave Neiwert himself was involved in the smear isn't known, but here's one definitely involving him directly.

In trying to debunk Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism" book, he says (dneiwert.blogspot.com/2008/01/buck-stops-here.html) that "[e]ach of these positions today is largely a tenet of the political right, and has been for some time":

-- Anti-Semitism

-- Racial separation

-- The quashing of civil rights for minorities

-- The destruction of federal government power

-- Anti-welfare

-- Anti-public education

-- Anti-homosexual

-- Anti-abortion

-- Anti-immigration

Is there some reason why anyone besides a complete Kool Aid drinker takes him seriously? A couple years ago I caught him trying to pretend that a bill that would block birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens was retroactive, but trying to smear those on the right side of things with that laundry list is even more disreputable.

Posted to Immigration2008a at January 11, 2008 10:08 PM