By John Nolte | April 30, 2012 | Breitbart
No one who writes for a living wouldn’t want to be the person behind Jonah Goldberg’s “Liberal Fascism,” which was not only a number-one New York Times’bestseller, but also a seminal publication in the growing canon of conservative-leaning books. What I would wish on no writer, however, is having to face the challenge and pressure of writing a follow-up to such a stunning debut. But with “The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas” (out today), not only has Goldberg (editor-at-large for National Review Online) avoided the sophomore slump — in many ways he has an even bigger triumph on his hands.
Everything conservatives will be looking for is on every page of “Tyranny.” Just as he did with “Liberal Fascism,” Goldberg uses scholarly history, damning logic, pop culture, and laugh-out-loud humor to connect the dots that expose the Left as the vacuous, dishonest, State-addicted mercenaries they really are. But what sets “Tyranny” apart from its predecessor and, in my opinion, improves on it, is two things:
First, simply by its title alone, “Liberal Fascism” was red meat for the Right; a delicious, timely, page-turning balm in The Year Of Obama. As we were getting our electoral butts kicked in every corner of America — as our worst political nightmares were impossibly coming true — we could at least get under the covers and flick a flashlight onto Jonah’s reassurance that we were right, dammit!
“Liberal Fascism” is ours and all ours, but to its credit, “Tyranny” is less so.
“Tyranny” isn’t red meat as much as it’s an argument. Yes, so was “Liberal Fascism,” but that was a more pointed argument made from a somewhat belligerent posture (which I loved). “Tyranny,” though, is something I would (and have) send to my Obama-loving, swing state-dwelling, left-wing mother. For years now, the two of us have fired books at one another in the hopes of persuading the other to see the light, and because Goldberg’s theme is less about partisan politics than it is about intellectual honesty, I’m convinced it’s going to be one of my more persuasive missives.
“Tyranny” isn’t about ideology. Don’t get me wrong, Goldberg still takes it to the Left, but liberalism (for very good reason) is merely the vehicle the author drives to explore the much bigger theme of how and why the left and their allies in media and academia have allowed political debate to devolve into cliché. The over-arching theme, however, is even bigger and speaks to conservative and liberal alike:
Think.
For.
Yourself.
Unfortunately for the Left, they’re the ones most guilty of failing in that department (don’t worry, Republicans take a few well-deserved licks), but I can’t imagine any reasonable liberal, like my mother, reading Goldberg’s words and not only rethinking how they themselves argue, but also feeling a little unsettled and bamboozled by some of the arguments they’ve bought into. Which brings me to my second point:
Read the full article here.
Update:
Piers Morgan’s Childish, Hostile, Cliché-Ridden Interview of Jonah Goldberg [Video]
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John Malcolm 