One Shot, One Kill

As much as I criticize the press, a fair majority of columnists do make a reasonable effort to get their journalism right. Yes, too many submit to herd thinking. Yes, too many are shockingly uninformed about the subjects they cover. But most don’t do it purposely.

But then there are glib hacks like Jonah Goldberg, a 41-year-old columnist, author (Liberal Fascism, 2008), and editor-at-large for the National Review (once a great magazine platform for rational conservative thinkers). He, and others like him, belongs to a special sect within the Church of Commentary. Call them the Opus Dei of punditry. For they pray to Doctrinaire Conservatism. Their motto: We’re right – You’re wrong, plus you’re a Heretic, too.

Here are some opening stanzas of his astonishing column (“Why is Assange still alive?”) today:

I'd like to ask a simple question: Why isn't Julian Assange dead?

Assange is the Australian computer programmer behind WikiLeaks, a massive … effort to disclose secret or classified information. … Military and other government officials insist that WikiLeaks is doing serious damage to American national security and is going to get people killed. Even Assange agrees. He told the New Yorker … that he fully understands innocent people might die as a result of the "collateral damage" of his work.

So again, I ask: Why wasn't Assange garroted in his hotel room years ago? It's a serious question.

Predictably, Goldberg then falls back to the usual equivocations (otherwise a trip to the lunatic ward awaits): OK, OK – I know it’s against the law to kill him. And OK, OK – I know the world isn’t as black & white as “self-important journalists” (like him) think it is. And OK, OK – I know things aren’t as simple as they are portrayed in the movies.

But isn’t it obvious that these are exactly his beliefs? In Goldberg’s fevered mind, Assange – like Al Qaeda and Islam – represents The Existential Threat. They must be obliterated at any cost, even if it means trashing the Constitution and our moral principles. To Goldberg, the world is indeed a Jason Bourne movie. And, like Bourne, only he (and the other majority stockholders of The Truth) has the steely nerve to make the kill shot or twist the garrote. (By the way, Goldberg has never served a day in a military uniform – or in intelligence or homeland security. He merely talks like Jack Bauer. Just so you know.)

Beyond listening to a nonsensical rant by an armchair capo, what have we learned? Nothing – other than the unmoored delusions floating about in Goldberg’s mind. So, what’s the point of writing the column? There is no point – other than getting TV airtime to rant some more.

Goldberg and his ilk represent an ominous quarter in American society. They appeal not our better angels, but to our darkest impulses. They’ve always been among us. But now they have outsized influence thanks to the megaphones handed to them by Fox News, ratings-crazed news networks, cowered newspapers and the Internet. The good news is that Goldberg, like all the other Special Ops wannabes, is all foam and no beer. And it is relatively easy to keep these knuckleheads in check. Call them out whenever they step over the line (as I think Goldberg did today), and ignore them the rest of time.