Exchange with Jonah Goldberg

Jonah Goldberg, editor of National Review Online, was not pleased with my brief send-up of Mark Goldblatt’s NRO piece “What is Racism.” I had sent them both a copy of it on Monday, and when I went online Tuesday morning I received a long message from Mr. Goldblatt explaining his article further, and a much shorter note from his editor Mr. Goldberg, which read as follows:

“Hilarious that you think I would care what you have to say after that bulls**t shot. Sorry, but it’s much easier to ignore this sort of silliness than you may think.”

Here’s my reply to Mr. Goldberg, followed by the rest of our exchange:

LA to JG:

Yes, Jonah, my piece criticizing Goldblatt’s article was so silly and so full of bulls**t that Goldblatt wrote me an e-mail with a lengthy careful explanation of his views. As hard as this may be for you to understand, some people are actually interested in ideas and truth.

JG to LA:

Hey you might have made perfectly valid points about Goldblatt or maybe Goldblatt is hyper-concerned about criticism. I don’t care, as I said.

My point is that your potshot about NR being incapable of speaking honestly about race because we’re young sell-outs was bulls**t. The fact that you may or may not have had good points only underscores the fact that you’re being stupid for taking unfounded, bad faith, potshots just to sound more pure. I’m perfectly willing to deal with ideas and truth, I just don’t debate people who publicly start from the position that I’m incapable of speaking intelligently. What I find hilarious is your ghetto mentality. But hey, who am I to lecture you?

LA to JG:

I did not intend to imply that you’re sellouts, only that you’re members of a conservative establishment that has a long established record of saying that race doesn’t matter, of embracing utopian notions of racial sameness, of attacking anyone who says that race and ethnicity does matter (for example, your vicious and ignorant attack on immigration reformers a few months ago in the Los Angeles Times*), and therefore that, based on that record, there was a rational assumption on the part of this reader that an article at NRO entitled “What is Racism?” was going to end up reflecting the prevailing liberal orthodoxy on the subject—which in fact turned out to be the case.

JG to LA:

That’s all fine by me, if that’s what you meant—though that is hardly what it reads like.

And, your description of how NR or NRO has dealt with race is, I think, bogus. It is typical of the Vdare crowd to assert that anyone who disagrees with their approach to race has been co-opted by liberal orthodoxy. It is a juvenile approach.

And as for my LA Times piece, I pulled my punches.

LA to JG:

I didn’t say the establishment conservatives have been co-opted by liberal orthodoxy. I said they believe in it.

As for your LA Times article, if I were to call it a disgrace, I’d be pulling my punches.

_____________________

*”Immigration: Ideologues Have Hijacked an Important Debate,” Jonah Goldberg, The Los Angeles Times, February 24, 2002.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 07, 2002 12:17 AM | Send