Kos seeks to become the Jonah Goldberg of the left

Markos Moulitsas, also known as "Kos" and the founder of the Daily Kos website, has a new book coming out in the Michael Moore/Ann Coulter genre called American Taliban: How War, Sex, Sin, and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical Right. As you can guess from the title, it expands his feeble-minded smears of conservatives to book-length form -- here's the book description on Amazon.com:

“We all agree with the Taliban.”—Rush Limbaugh, October 9, 2009

America’s primary international enemy—Islamic radicalism—insists on government by theocracy, curtails civil liberties, embraces torture, represses women, wants to eradicate homosexuals from society, and insists on the use of force over diplomacy. Remind you of a certain American political party? In American Taliban, Markos Moulitsas pulls no punches as he compares how the Republican Party and Islamic radicals maintain similar worldviews and tactics. Moutlitsas also challenges the media, fellow progressives, and our elected officials to call the radical right on their jihadist tactics more forcefully for the good of our nation and safety of all citizens.

The conservative/Taliban comparison Kos is drawing on was pioneered by former NAACP president Julian Bond in 2001 and then widely adopted after 9/11 by Democratic and liberal figures such as Senator Tim Johnson, Josh Marshall, Lewis Lapham, and Chris Matthews. The Kos book takes this meme to another level, providing yet another example of how both left- and right-wing figures increasingly try to smear their opponents by comparing them to hated foreign regimes and figures.

Ironically, Kos's book is almost the mirror image of Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism -- right down to the cover art, which is a takeoff or parody of Goldberg's:

We obviously don't know what's in Kos's book yet (it's scheduled to be released on Sept. 1), but it's telling that the quote included in the book description is taken out of context. Rush Limbaugh was noting the irony of the fact that he agreed with the Taliban and Iran's opposition to President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, not stating that he agreed with the Taliban in general as the phrasing above suggests:

LIMBAUGH: I think that everybody is laughing. Our president is a worldwide joke. Folks, do you realize something has happened here that we all agree with the Taliban and Iran about and that is he doesn’t deserve the award. Now that’s hilarious, that I’m on the same side of something with the Taliban, and that we all are on the same side as the Taliban.

This video is from MSNBC’s News Live, broadcast Oct. 9, 2009.

Expect more of the same in the book.

Update 8/10 7:48 PM: I forgot to mention that I saw the cover on Dave Weigel's blog.

Comments

[MartyB]

Not sure your headline is appropriate, in that you argue it's only in the cover that Goldberg and Kos' books are similar.

[JP]

I hope when I (eventually) release my blog I never get slammed like this. That would be embarrassing.

[The Masked Defender]

Goldberg's premise is solid even if you disagree. Kos is purely a hysterical propagandist. Also Goldberg has had his views vetted by actual years as a journalist at elite publications.

But really the difference is that the "radical right" wants people to stop being debauched as a tenet of their faith and approach to life, but also because it is that debauchery that is the root cause of poverty here and now. I don't think you'll find more than a fringe element that would outlaw pre-marital sex for example, if even that.

And even if you entertain the notion that the radical right in the USA aspires to a culture with some similarities to a more modern version of Islam, it's not bombing anyone or going on honor killing missions. The radical right would persuade (and vote as is their right) toward a more well-mannered culture. I mean, how so very horrible is it that pornography video stores/peep shows are zoned out of Main Street in Peoria? Not.

I'd keep an eye on them though; there is a hint of insight in Kos's hysteria. 450 years ago those Christian fanatics were burning "witches."

[MartyB]

FWIW, here's Goldberg's take on the Kos book cover:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/243052/judging-books-their-covers-jonah-goldberg

Highlights:
"the smiley-face cover of LF wasn’t simply a gimmick..." but ispired by comments George Carlin made on Bill Mayer's show -"Carlin: When fascism comes to America, it will not be in brown and black shirts. It will not be with jack-boots. It will be Nike sneakers and Smiley shirts. Smiley-smiley."

"George Carlin’s conclusion is right, though not his reasoning. If fascism does come to America, it will indeed take the form of “smiley-face fascism”—nice fascism…".

Also:
"the originator of the phrase “Liberal Fascism” was H.G. Wells, and his conception of the term lies at the very heart of my book’s argument. Wells’s arguments, directly or indirectly, mirrored those of many of the founders of modern American liberalism and I cite scores of writings and actions by leading liberals to make that case."

MartyB

[Roger]

I hope you appreciate the irony in sticking up for Rush Limbaugh being quoted out of context.

[KJ]

"Goldberg's premise is solid even if you disagree. Kos is purely a hysterical propagandist. Also Goldberg has had his views vetted by actual years as a journalist at elite publications."

Hilarious! Goldberg is the quintessential example of wingnut welfare. His book was roundly mocked for good reason. And Kos's book simply illustrates the absurdity of Goldberg's book for those on the right who didn't immediately see it as such. We now know that amateurish untalented writers can compare political ideology to anything given a few months and an undiscerning publisher.

By the way I have a new book coming out titled: Moderate Khanism: How the American Middle, like Genghis Khan before them, will unite us only to end in the slaughter of American Vibrancy.

[bnyhan]

Love it -- KJ has found an unaddressed market niche...

[JD]

Declaring a quote to be "taken out of context" means that the quote was selected in order to deceive the reader. But no one thinks that Moulitsas expects his readers to conclude from the quote that Limbaugh consciously agrees with everything the Taliban says.

The point of the quote is that Limbaugh had this brief glimmer of the parallels between his world and the Taliban's, but considered it only an ironic parallel because he was so certain he and the Taliban were polar opposites. The full ramifications of the Limbaugh/Taliban parallel require a book-length explication, but in any case, no one thinks that (a) Limbaugh really agrees with the Taliban, or (b) that Moulitsas expects his readers to conclude (a) after reading the quote. The point of the quote is to be provocative, by showing Limbaugh to be declaring something we all know he doesn't consciously mean -- but which may nevertheless be inadvertently revealing. Accusing Moulitsas of out-of-context quotation is to entirely miss the point of the quote.

Similarly, the parallel cover is clearly not an accident, and thus the declaring it "ironic" is a misunderstanding, unless you simply mean it was intentionally ironic.

Finally, the fact that the "conservative/Taliban" parallel has been made for many years doesn't show that it is mistaken, any more than its surface similarity to Goldberg's "liberal/fascism" parallel demonstrates that both parallels are false. Try reading both books instead of judging their covers; one is gibberish, and the other is closely argued and documented. Frankly, I don't care which you think is which -- only that their arguments be judged on their merits, and not via some cheap symmetries.

[MartyB]

I'm sure KJ's opinion of Goldberg's book as "mocked for good reason" and "absurd" is based on his reading of the actual book and it's arguments, not just the title....

Oh, I forgot, even suggesting such a thing as "Liberal Facsism" is a smear regardless if you provide back up for the description.