It started civilly enough, discussing my new book, "Liberal Fascism." But things got sufficiently testy that we spent nearly 20 minutes swearing and sparring, and only six minutes aired. The result was "choppy as hell," Stewart had to concede.
Largely left on the cutting-room floor were some important points that might have made my book seem a bit more nuanced. When he railed about conservatives and gay marriage, I pointed out that in my book, I'm sympathetic to it. When he took shots at Republicans, I noted that I criticize the likes of President Bush and Pat Buchanan for being "right-wing progressives."
He explains the smiley face, which seems to be everyone's biggest objection since they haven't read the book:
As for the smiley face, that's a reference to the comedian and social commentator George Carlin, who explained on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" that "when fascism comes to America, it will not be in brown and black shirts. It will not be with jack-boots. It will be Nike sneakers and smiley shirts. Smiley-smiley."
He points out that all the wise folk scratching their chins and saying "You mean you think that modern-day liberals are fascists? Really?" just nod their heads when the moniker is hurled at the right.
Meanwhile, liberals routinely and cavalierly call conservatives Nazis and fascists -- with the Holocaust fully in mind -- without inviting an ounce of opprobrium from the same folks screeching about me. Naomi Wolf argues in "The End of America" that the United States today is in every important way identical to early 1930s Nazi Germany. Christopher Hedges (a former New York Times reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner) penned a book called, subtly enough, "American Fascists." Guess who he was talking about? Jesse Jackson, Paul Krugman and Bill Clinton, among other prominent liberals, have insinuated or declared that conservatives are the spiritual or intellectual heirs of Nazism.
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