The Audacity of Fascism

I love it when I find the unintended comedy of idealogical irony.

One instance of this occured in today's print edition of USA Today (Thanks Holiday Inn!)

On page 13A we find Jonah Goldberg's delicious little opinion piece on Vladimir Putin's love affair with his "ideological ally" FDR, titled 'Putin's role model'.

Jonah asks us to remember that the New Deal was socialism incarnate, and was adored by foreign fascists across the globe:

"Even so, we forget how martial FDR was, long before World War II loomed on the horizon. Almost every New Deal program was rooted in the logic of Woodrow Wilson's "war socialism." The dubious constitutionality of the New Deal was rationalized under the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act. In his first inaugural, FDR dubs all of America a single "great Army" he would lead in a "disciplined attack upon our common problems." In fireside chats, he'd call for such things as a great "summer offensive against unemployment."

No doubt the editorial staff at USA Today was holding their nose, since they were obligated by contract to run Jonah's insights. Thus to counteract this they decided to place a column right next to his that extolled the great virtues of Barack Obama in his ability in "transcending racial divide".

No doubt in their zeal to provide balance to Jonah, they forgot to actually read the column on Obama, which helped demonstrate Jonah's point that liberals still like to declare war on their problems of choice....

"Back in July, I asked Obama whether he could lead a new
war on poverty given the historic resistance of taxpayers to
funding these kinds of programs."

Not that I needed one, but I guess this is another convincing reason to buy Jonah's new book, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning.