Jonah's Latest, Ctd.

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04 Dec 2008 09:18 am

A reader notices that Goldberg isn't just intellectually dishonest, he's incapable of taking a stance on the issue:

Probably because half my family is Mormon, I was more sympathetic to Jonah's column and more bothered by the anti-Mormon stuff that (while somewhat exagerrated) I've witnessed here in CA.

But on a more substantive note, take a look at Jonah's view on same-sex marriage and on the impact of the campaign in its favor: "My own view is that gay marriage is likely inevitable and won't be nearly the disaster many of my fellow conservatives fear it will be. But the scorched-earth campaign to victory pushed by gay-marriage advocates may well be disastrous, and "liberals" should be ashamed for countenancing it."

Note, as is typical of him: He doesn't actually take a stand on anything other than whether someone else ought to "feel" a particular emotion about his conduct. He does this over and over in his writing.

1. "gay marriage is likely inevitable" - he not only refuses to take a stand on what he thinks about it, but he can't even go out on a limb and predict that it "is" inevitable. If it's only "likely inevitable", he'll never be wrong.

2. "gay marriage ... won't be nearly the disaster many of my fellow conservatives fear it will be." Again, no actual stance on his own part and since it "won't nearly be the disaster" he can't be wrong there, either. If it is a disaster, it won't "be nearly the disaster" and if it's not a disaster, then he "predicted" that too.

3. "the campaign ... may well be disastrous" - again no actual stand and he can't ever be wrong.

The only thing he takes a stand on: "liberals should be ashamed". Other people have to "feel" a particular emotion.

You can take most of his columns and perform the same analysis.

He's useful as a diagnostic for what's wrong with conservatism. But sadly not much else.

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