Jonah Goldberg’s finally finished and released his book Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. People seem to love Liberal Fascism (Goldberg has a whole blog to keep track of reactions; apparently some liberals are hostile to it) as its been selling out everywhere and even Amazon.com ran out of stock. Actually, it’s kinda pointless telling you about it since you can’t buy it. Still, I decided to interview Jonah Goldberg to see if I could get a free copy out of the deal (I’m still waiting).
Q. You seem to be doing a great service to liberals by pointing out their fascistic tendencies. I know if I were doing fascist things, I’d like someone to point it out so I could stop. How grateful have liberals been thus far?
I’ve been told that in some cultures, huge piles of dog feces wrapped in burning brown paper and comments on the promiscuity of relatives on your matrilineal line are considered enormous compliments. So by that standard, things are great!
Unfortunately, we don’t live in one of those cultures.
Q. One great way to stop liberals from being fascists would be to round them up into camps. What should be the activities at these camps? Wallet-making? Canoeing? Something else?
I don’t want to send anyone to camps, just for the record. But at Camp Kenwood, when I was a lad, we had a grand time playing water polo with a watermelon slathered in lard. For what that’s worth.
Q. Some people may find it surprising to call liberals fascists, especially anyone who has never been on a college campus, since liberals just want to help the poor. Why do you hate the poor? Is it their smell?
Poor people don’t buy books as much as rich people, so obviously they matter less.
By the way, you smell poor.
Q. What exactly is so bad about fascism anyway?
I see where you’re going here. I think it was Lenny on the Simpsons who said, “Sure, the Germans made some mistakes, but that’s why pencils have erasers.”
Fascism is bad in all the ways socialism can be bad. Why? Because fascism is a kind of socialism.
Q. You point out that liberals are like the Nazis because they’re for organic farming and social programs, and so were the Nazis. Well, the Nazis also wore hats, so does that make anyone who wears a hat a Nazi? (Please say yes, because my wife keeps telling me to wear a hat when I leave the house, but I don’t want to.)
No, actually this is what a lot of my critics keep saying I say. It’s not in fact what I say. The point about the organic food stuff is that many on the left use the same arguments to defend organic food that Nazis did. They blather on about how we’re all interconnected, about how capitalism makes you sick, about how the organic “holistic” lifestyle is an antidote to the alienating, deracinating pressures of modernity. They link socialized medicine to personal lifestyles, arguing that the state has every right to intervene in what you eat and how you live, because the state is picking up the tab (In Canada fat people can’t get all sorts of surgeries because the state doesn’t think they deserve them). I don’t say liberals are Nazis because they both like organic food. But I do think that if we’re going to have a permanent Fascism Watch we might as well ponder the implications of such similarities. “Public health initiatives were pursued not just in spite of fascism, but also in consequence of fascism,” Robert Procter argues in his path-breaking book, The Nazi War on Cancer. The National Socialist “campaign against tobacco and the ‘whole-grain bread operation’ are, in some sense, as fascist as the yellow stars and the death camps.”
And tell your wife if you wear a hat, you’re worse than Hitler.
Q. I noticed in your recent TV appearance you have a goatee. How do we know you’re not Jonah Goldberg’s evil twin out to defame him and his talking couch?
I’m going to cut off your head and sht down your neck.
Q. Which presidential candidate is the most fascist?
I don’t know, but Hillary Clinton wrote the most fascistic book of any of the candidates, remaining. Although I would have said Bill Richardson because he once wrote a book called “Nazi Supermen Are My Heroes” but it was in Spanish so few people read it. Also, despite the title, most of the book was about how he doesn’t like negative campaigning.
Q. According to Amazon.com, your book is 496 pages and 1.6 pounds. If I saw a liberal three yards away who looked to be about five foot nine, and I were to throw the book with a momentum of 5 Ns at a release height of six feet, what angle would I have to throw the book at to hit the liberal directly on top of his head? Ignore wind resistance. Show your work.
No one told me there’d be math on this!
[It’s actually a kinetics physics problem. Strange he knows so little about his own book. -Ed.]
Q. Would you support a tactical nuclear strike against the moon to fight fascism?
You well know my greatest concern is the threat posed by Volcanoes. The moon will have to wait. Perhaps we should have a sort of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with the moon until we’re prepared to strike.
Q. Tell us briefly why we should buy your book. You can’t use the letter ‘e’.
First, it aids in stopping folks from Visa coming to my pad and taking my stuff willy-nilly. Also, you would gain wisdom. This is hard. I miss that thing prior to F and following D.

Q. Your interview on the Daily Show was quite edited. What happened in the cut parts? Did you strike Jon Stewart? How hard? Did it do any good?
We played tonsil hockey for about three minutes. Then he told me every single word in my book was dead-on accurate. Then he said, “but of course we’ll cut that out! Hah ha ha ha!”
Q. Since conservatives like me fear change, were you branded as a witch or a communist for starting National Review Online?
Some branded me witch, others Communist. Which is funny because I am in fact both. I attend meetings where the first half are conducted Politburo style (How many bushels of wheat did we produce this week? Have the canned hams been sent to my dacha? Etc). Then in the second half we spark up a big cauldron of eye of newt stew and put hexes on carnival workers and people named Todd.
Q. The Corner is a very popular blog, but does anybody have any idea how many people are allowed to post on it and who those people are?
There are actually only three of us, we just keeping making up new names. Mark Steyn is actually an intern from Loyola. That guy you sometimes see out in public is an actor. You may know him from such films as “Kris Kringle Killed My Dog,” “Show Tunes Versus Demography: What Price Freedom?”, or “Knocked-Up.”
Q. And how many blogs does NRO now have? Is anyone actually expected to read all of those?
Yes. You will be quizzed later. How many? I don’t know. Fewer than grains of sand on a beach, more than the number of natural teeth in Joe Biden’s head.
Q. The people at the Daily Kos seem to hate you, but it’s also well known they like eating their own feces. How could you be worse than the taste of feces?
That’s a question you will have to ask the corprophagics at Daily Kos. Apparently they can develop a taste for anything – anything but me.
Q. According to Wikipedia, your youth was spent robbing liquor stores until you saw an episode of Star Trek that made you reevaluate your life. What episode was it?
How does Wikipedia get everything so, so right? It was “A Piece of the Action” because until I saw that I had no idea Vic Tayback was so versatile. I mean I knew he was drop-dead sexy. But the man had chops. And once I saw that, I knew that there was more for me than boosting Korean-owned liquor stores and huffing Miracle Whip.
Q. In one of your syndicated columns, you used some Fred Thompson Facts. On average, how much of your columns is stolen from bloggers?
Stolen? Dude you paid me to do that.
Q. What blogs, if any, do you read? (say you only read IMAO)
The Only Blog I Read is IMAO.
[Finally someone who can follow instructions. Buy his book! -Ed.]
Q. In closing, do you have a message for our nation’s youth?
Text message while driving, don’t go to sleep until you make it to the next level on your gameboxcube thing, condoms are for losers, only users lose drugs, always ask yourself “What would Britney Spears Do?” get all of your news from IMAO.

So far, the presidential campaigns have been pretty good at not allowing me to get any questions through to the candidates, but the Tom Tancredo campaign failed in this manner. Still, only four of my questions made it to the candidate (I had many more, including ones about the Mexi-Cannon and whether he would keep nukes on the table in our dealings with the moon).
BTW, I heard Rep. Tom Tancredo yesterday on the Laura Ingraham show talking about how he would use the threat to nuke Mecca to discourage Islamists. That actually gave SarahK pause, and you have to be really extreme to give SarahK pause (“Cutting the feet off of illegal immigrants is a great idea! Yay!”). Still, I guess extremism in fighting terrorists is no vice.
Here’s the interview (or at least all the questions I got through to him):
Q. There has been much talk about a fence to keep out illegal immigrants, but it has been shown by scientists time and time again that humans can climb fences. Do you propose stronger methods to end illegal immigration?
Fences do work. In California, there was “Operation Gatekeeper” in 1994, where a 14-mile fence was erected along the San Diego-Tijuana corridor and, consequently, the number of illegal aliens crossing fell by 98 percent. In addition to fences, I will eliminate benefits and job prospects for illegal aliens so they do not stay.
Q. The Democrats’ plan for the war in Iraq is failure. Are you so arrogant as to say you have a better plan?
I have confidence, not ego. America’s noble sacrifice has purchased Iraqis a precious opportunity for democratic change; it is now up to them to ensure success. Setting the President’s ‘November benchmark for shifting control’ as an actual timetable for disengagement will let regional powers and Iraqi factions cooperate to forge a new balance of power.
Q. What are your favorite blogs?
Well, my blog, of course – http://teamtancredo.typepad.com
[Ed. Note: I told him to say “IMAO.” Do we really want someone as president who won’t do what I tell him?]
Q. Finally, do you have a message for our nation’s youth?

You are never too young to get involved with the political process. We need more young people committed to the cause of this great nation.

You can see Rep. Tancredo in the Republican Presidential Debate tonight on FOX News.

In the interest of fairness, after interviewing Democrat Dr. Bob Bowman who is running to be the Congressman for Florida District 15 (where I live), I once again extended an offer to Republican Rep. Dave Weldon so that he could respond to Dr. Bowman’s “interesting” views as well as other important questions. He accepted, so I e-mailed out the tough questions (Full Disclosure: I’m a partisan hack). Here’s the interview:
Q. Your opponent, Dr. Bob Bowman, thinks that there was a government conspiracy behind 9/11. Other than the numerous eye witness accounts, the forensic evidence, the analysis by structural engineers, the intense media scrutiny, the statements by al Qaeda, collected intelligence, and common sense, what evidence do you have that 9/11 was in fact done by Islamic extremists and was not a gigantic government plot?
How about Osama himself, who not only took credit for the 9/11 event and claimed Atta as one of his key ring leaders, but on the video he sent out shortly after the event he gleefully said that “the damage was greater than expected” and elaborated more about his wicked plan in detail. It would take a very special (insert your own euphemism) cynicism to say he wasn’t responsible.
Q. If there are more government conspiracies in the future, will you make sure to be a part of them so that they will benefit your constituents?
If my constituents knew, then it wouldn’t be a genuine “conspiracy.”
Q. In my interview, Dr. Bowman stated that the greatest threat to America is the “fascist regime of George W. Bush”. What do you think the greatest threat to America is?
As an old Army officer we had a term called IFF…Identify: Friend or Foe. In wartime those who can’t seem to distinguish friend of foe can be as dangerous as the enemy himself.
Q. A popular issue in the blogosphere is pork spending. I’m highly against any pork that doesn’t benefit me. What’s your stance on that issue?
Every year Congress passes spending bills. What and how we spend is, constitutionally, up to Congress. Not the president, not the bureaucrats and not the lobbyists. Some Members of Congress end up abusing that privilege, losing the people’s trust. Earmarks for “bridges-to-nowhere” is that kind of abuse. That happened because there was no sunshine on that earmark. No longer. I voted this year to “Sunshine” all such projects from now on. They will stand or fall on their merits, as they should.
Q. You seem to be a strong supporter of energy independence, but if we stop buying oil, won’t that just make everyone in the Middle East even angrier?
That’s liberal nonsense. I’d rather they be angry and penniless than “less angry” and flush with our cash. For me it’s simple: Energy security means national security. We must be self-sufficient as best we can. The status quo is just not acceptable.
Q. The government is supposed to build a fence along part of the U.S. southern border, but scientific studies have shown that people are capable of climbing fences. Do you support any other methods to secure our border?
The bill the president just signed is not just for any average picket fence. It’s double layered, penetrating the ground as well to prevent tunneling and loaded up with the latest detection equipment. If it cuts down a large majority of illegals (which it will), I’ll be happy. We did this in California and it worked well.
Q. All the talk seems to be about the Southern border, but what about the Canadian threat?
You go where the problem is, but we have deployed more resources to the Canadian border as well.
Q. Living on the Space Coast, one of our biggest problems are noisy space shuttles. The last time the Space Shuttle Atlantis returned, it was early morning and the loud boom from its reentry woke me up and scared my dog. Can’t you do something about that, like maybe tell the astronauts to slow it down a bit? I know they’re anxious to get home, but it’s not like the earth is going anywhere… is it?
After 12 days in space, wouldn’t you be anxious to get home too?
Q. Your opponent says that violent video games are bad because they desensitize our soldiers. My wife says violent video games are bad because they are a monumental waste of time. I think violent video games are good because they’re fun. Who is right?
You wife sounds very wise. As a matter of fact on all issues of dispute between your wife and Bob Bowman, go with your wife.
Q. Regardless of what happens in the upcoming election, Florida will no longer have a governor named Jeb. Should I be scared for our future?
Only if the Democrat gets elected.
Q. My brother is a Marine and has served in Iraq and will most likely go there again. One of his complaints was that they had too much body armor in Iraq and that it was beginning to clutter their camps. Will you support the de-funding of body armor for our troops to prevent clutter?
If clutter saves lives, I’m all for it.
Q. My wife won’t let me vote for anyone who doesn’t support killing terrorists. What’s your stance on that important issue?
You wife is sounding smarter and smarter.
Q. If next year you have to serve under Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, how sad will you be?
Not as sad as the voters will be when they learn that Nancy thinks they deserve a tax increase to go along with those new civil rights for terrorists.
Q. In 2003, you published a science fiction novel called Moongate. What other activities besides writing novels do you do while other Congressman are speaking at the Capitol?
I love playing my guitar with my band named the “2nd Amendments.” The best gig ever was with the troops in Iraq this past Christmas.
Q. My wife is constantly complaining about different ailments. As a medical doctor, is there something you can prescribe her to shut her up?
You wife is sounding smarter and smarter.
Q. Living in Florida, we’re constantly threatened by hurricanes, alligators, lightning, and tourists. What are you doing to make Florida safer?
Let’s start with defeating my opponent in November.
Q. According to Wikipedia, you once killed an alligator with your bare hands to defend a group of school children on a fieldtrip. What did you learn from that experience?
I learned mostly that it wasn’t true.
Q. Why do you think you deserve reelection?
I don’t deserve anything. If I get reelected it was because I earned it. You never “deserve” to be in elected office. You are the caretaker of a very special part of Democracy.
Q. Out of curiosity, in all your years living in Florida, have you ever met a native Floridian?
Yep, but I noticed most of them are either very young or very old.
Q. What blogs, if any, do you read? (say you only read IMAO)
Besides the obvious local fav, I get a lot from “The American Thinker”
Q. In closing, do you have a message for our nation’s youth?
Set your dreams high and your values even higher.
Thanks for the interview.
You are welcome!

Democrat Dr. Bob Bowman, a Vietnam combat veteran, is running in my district, Florida District 15, for Congress against Republican Rep. Dave Weldon who has served at the Space Coast’s representative since 1994. Dave Weldon won his last reelection with 65% of the vote and seems to not be expecting much of challenge, but recent event have shaken things up, including the scandal involving another Florida Congressman, Mark Foley.
Dr. Bob Bowman recently got a bit of notice in the blogosphere for his views on government complicity in 9/11, and I decided to request an interview. He accepted, and I sent him some questions through e-mail. A request for an interview with Rep. Dave Weldon was unanswered by his campaign staff.
Here’s the interview:
Q. You state that there is mounting evidence of the U.S. government’s complicity in 9/11. What do you think is the most compelling evidence of this?
A. Lack of intercept and the fall of WTC 7.
Q. You’ve said before that you think Vice President Dick Cheney is a key suspect as the architect of the 9/11 attack. What do you think he had to gain?
A. I said (in an answer to a hypothetical question) that IF someone in our government was involved, the key suspect would be Cheney because of his role in running the exercises which masked the “hijacked” airliners. He, along with Wolfowitz, Libby, Perle, Feith, Rumsfeld, etc., put forth the PNAC document which planned the occupation of Iraq in 2000. They saw Iraq as key to military control of the entire Middle East and perhaps ten trillion dollars worth of oil and gas. Cheney has already gained many millions through his Halliburton stock options from the Iraq War justified by 9/11.
Q. One position you’ve written on your website is that, if the CIA cannot be reformed, it should be abolished. Don’t you think that will be a tough sell with terrorism still an important issue to many Americans?
A. We would not be the target of terrorists if we didn’t have a foreign policy which uses military power to subdue third world countries so our multinational corporations can steal their resources. The intelligence analysts at the CIA are actually quite good. They were right in saying that Iraq was no threat and had no weapons of mass destruction. They were not listened to. But the “dirty tricks” side of the CIA has been responsible for millions of deaths. Yes, it will be a hard sell because so many Americans have swallowed the phony War on Terror. I propose it because it’s right, not because it’s easy.
Q. I had never heard about video games being used to decondition recruits from a reluctance to kill. Are these regular video games being commercially sold or special training simulators made by the military?
At first they were all regular commercial video games. I think the military has made some of their own now.
Q. When you refer to the “rape of Yugoslavia” on your campaign site, what do you mean?
The dismantling of Yugoslavia ordered by George H. W. Bush and completed by Clinton with 70 days of bombing of Kosovo in violation of the War Powers Act and the Constitution. I’ve written extensive articles on this. See, for example, the Kosovo article on www.rmbowman.com/ssn.
Q. You state on your site “If I were President, I would pardon thousands of nonviolent offenders and political prisoners.” Who are the political prisoners you refer to?
Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu Jamal for starters.
Q. What do you consider to be the biggest threat to our nation right now?
The fascist regime of George W. Bush.
Q. Your running in what’s considered a very safe district for Republicans. Are you just trying to make a point, or do you think you can win?
A. I intend to win, and to win big.
Q. Why do you think Dave Weldon doesn’t deserve reelection?
A. He is merely a rubber stamp for the Bush Administration. He votes against the interest of the people of this country regularly. His voting record is rated as absolute zero by such groups as the Disabled American Veterans and the Association for Retired Americans.
Q. In closing, do you have a message for our nation’s youth?
A. We need a government which serves the needs of the people, not their own financial interests. Go to www.Bowman2006.com and read my Vision for America. We can have such a nation if we work together and take back our country. Study the issues, then register and vote. You are our future.

Wild Bill, the writer at Passionate America and past host of The Carnival of Comedy, was recently a newsbreaker. He and another blogger, Ms. Underestimated, researched and released the name of one of the alegedly underaged Foleygate interns. Their investigtion, contained in this heavily linked post revealed this particular intern was neither underage nor an intern at the time the released IM’s, which are disgusting, were made. This resulted in Mr Bill being interviewed on a number of media outlets. I caught up with Wild Bill in the middle of the chaos. When I realized this was a somebody who was a former nobody to whom I probably appear to be a somebody I decided to interview him and completely un-euphemistically grab the coattails of his sudden rise to fame.
A Spacemonkey Interview with Wild Bill Kerr (incidentally through an IM interface.)
[The following interview was lightly edited for humor, and to correct some of my misssplllellings]

Continue reading ‘Wild Bill Interview’ »

When deciding who should be my second interview, the choice was obvious. John Derbyshire is a columnist, author, mathematician, uncredited thug, general curmudgeon, and one writer at National Review I wouldn’t try and replace. He’s decidedly as non-PC as they get, and often sports controversy because of it (he once put up a math problem about monkeys and it scared me). If you haven’t been reading him, then catch up. Until then, read this interview Mr. Derbyshire graciously did over e-mail.

Continue reading ‘Frank Discussions: John Derbyshire’ »

Here’s something different for me: an actual interview. At the suggestion and help of Eric Scheie of Classical Values, I got fifteen minutes on the phone with G. Gordon Liddy, known for the G. Gordon Liddy Show and… well… other things (check out his site; it has his bio there if you really don’t know who he is). As inane as I tried to make my questions, Mr. Liddy somehow came up with serious and thoughtful answers to all of them. That, combined with some bad research, I think made me come off as a bit more of an idiot than usual, but I still believe it’s a good read.
Thanks again to Eric Scheie, to Mr. Liddy’s producer (and sometimes Stacked & Packed calendar model) Diana, and especially to G. Gordon Liddy.
Now, without further ado, here is my first ever transcription of a phone conversation:

Continue reading ‘Frank Discussions: G. Gordon Liddy’ »

Maripat of Right We Are has interviewed me; this time it’s a more serious one.

Sometimes you feel like a nut (Democrat primary), sometimes you don’t (general election). So which Democrat candidate will be nutty enough to win the primary, gaining that hearts of the Democrat base of drooling idiots? And will he make himself too nutty to be viable in the general election?
To find these answers, I talked to the candidates themselves.
All interviews are now up. They are of John Kerry, Richard Gephardt, Joe Liberman, John Edwards, Howard Dean, Al Sharpton, Bob Graham, Dennis Kucinich, Carol Moseley Braun, Jojo the Monkey, and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Continue reading ‘Frank Discussions: Democratic Presidential Candidates’ »

You won’t believe who I got for an interview this week: the President. Yeah, that’s right, Dubya himself; no one can refuse an interview by the great Frank J. He was in Florida, so I got him to stop by my house for a quick, relaxed chat:

Continue reading ‘Frank Discussions: George W. Bush’ »

My last two interviews were done with people at about my own level of fame, such as Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice, but I decided this time to interview one of the lesser people. That’s why I had an ICQ chat with Bill Whittle from the blog Eject! Eject! Eject! He’s known best for writing asinine essays that are a physical test of one’s attention span, but I wanted to see if I could challenge him to answer questions in 8,000 words or fewer. I then granted him the honor of even more of my time by letting him interview me, that half of the ICQ chat appearing on his site (I cannot guarantee any links that leave my URL; assume everything outside of IMAO is filled with porno and foul language).
Anyway, the interview:

Continue reading ‘Frank Discussions: Bill Whittle’ »

Guess who go to sit down with Condoleezza Rice for a nice chat?
No, me, jackass.
I was like, “Hey, it’s Frank J. of IMAO.us. How would you like me to interview you?”
And she was like, “Frank J.! Oh, my God; I can’t believe it! I love your site! It’s so much better than the site of that puppy blending monster.”
Yeah, that’s what happened.
No, you’re a liar.
Anyway, here’s the interview:

Continue reading ‘Frank Discussions: Condoleezza Rice’ »