Book Con

With all the talk swirling about epistemic closure on the right, I thought I would do my part to broaden my own information intake, which I openly admit skews quite liberal. I perused National Review's The Corner, and came across this entry, an advertisement for conservative books:



I'm not going to comment on the Mumia book because I don't know enough about the case, and because I am somewhat embarrassed about my own support of the Free Mumia movement as a restless 14 year-old, based entirely on the fact that Rage Against the Machine told me it mattered.

But regarding the other two: the Crusades book comes as something as a surprise, simply because I didn't think anybody would defend an episode that is still used to define the "Clash of Civilizations" today. But then I realized that there are vested interests in keeping such clashes going (namely those who believe not just that there is a God, but that he has battalions). Exposure to this sort of thing is the whole point of this exercise after all, so I consider it a personal victory.

The Goldberg book, though, is eminently predictable. The Liberal Media is a perennial complaint of the right, so of course they would tie Obama to it. But how graceless an effort! The book's title, in its entirety, is Bernard Goldberg Presents: A Slobbering Love Affair, Starring Barack Obama: The True (and Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media. It makes one long for the concision of the other Goldberg, Jonah's, book. Say what you will about Liberal Fascism, at least its author is into the whole brevity thing.