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Jonah Goldberg

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Jonah Jacob Goldberg (born March 21, 1969), is an American conservative commentator. Goldberg is known for his contributions on politics and culture to National Review Online, where he is the editor-at-large. He also frequently appears on television, on such shows as Good Morning America, Crossfire, Nightline, Hardball with Chris Matthews, Larry King Live and Your World with Neil Cavuto.

Early life and career

Goldberg graduated from Goucher College in 1991. He was active in student politics at Goucher and was the co-editor of the school newspaper, The Quindecim [1], for two years. He and Andreas Benno Kollegger were the first men to run the paper.

Goldberg interned for Scripps Howard News Service, United Press International, and other news organizations. He also worked for Delilah Communications, a publishing house in New York, and for Morris, Bograd and Trippi, a political consulting firm.

After graduation, he taught English in Prague for under a year before moving to Washington to take a job at the American Enterprise Institute. While at AEI he worked for Ben J. Wattenberg. He was the researcher for Wattenberg's nationally syndicated column and for Wattenberg's book, Values Matter Most. He also worked on several PBS public affairs documentaries, including a two-hour special hosted by David Gergen and Wattenberg. Goldberg also served for three years on the Board of Trustees of Goucher College.

In 1994 he was a founding producer for Wattenberg's Think Tank with Wattenberg. That same year he moved to New River Media, an independent television production company, which produced Think Tank as well as numerous other television programs and projects. Goldberg worked on a large number of television projects across the United States, as well as in Europe and Japan. He wrote produced, and edited two documentaries, Gargoyles: Guardians of the Gate [2], and Notre Dame: Witness to History.

Goldberg joined National Review as a contributing editor in 1998. By the end of that year he was asked to launch National Review Online as a sister publication to National Review. He served as editor of National Review Online for several years, and is now Editor-at-Large.

Clinton-Lewinsky Scandal

Goldberg's career as a pundit was launched following his mother Lucianne Goldberg's role in the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal[3] [4].

Goldberg has spoken of his mother and the Lewinsky scandal:

"My mother was the one who advised Linda Tripp to record her conversations with Monica Lewinsky and to save the dress. I was privy to some of that stuff, and when the administration set about to destroy Lewinsky, Tripp, and my mom, I defended my mom and by extension Tripp...I have zero desire to have those arguments again. I did my bit in the trenches of Clinton's trousers." [5]

These tapes became the focal point of the Lewinsky scandal. Jonah Goldberg was privy to the tapes and the conversations Lucianne Goldberg had with Ms. Tripp because he served as a vice president of his mother's now-defunct literary agency. When the scandal broke, Goldberg defended his mother and Ms. Tripp during the ensuing media firestorm.

Where his work has appeared

He has a National Review Online column, the "Goldberg File" (often called the "G-File" by fans, who are called "G-Philes"), and a second, syndicated column, available from Townhall.com (among other places), which tends to be more uniformly serious in tone than his National Review Online column, which he has written regularly since September 11 1998. He has also written for The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, The Public Interest, The Wilson Quarterly, The Weekly Standard, the New York Post, The Women’s Quarterly, and Slate.

On November 11 2005, The Los Angeles Times announced that Goldberg will be added to its editorial lineup.

His new book, several years in the writing, is Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation from Mussolini to Hillary Clinton, a study of the ideological origins of fascism.

Opinions

Frequent topics

Some frequent topics of his articles include censorship [6] [7], meritocracy [8] [9], liberty [10], federalism [11] [12], and interpretation of the Constitution [13], his attacks on the ethics and morals of "liberals" and Democrats, and his disagreements with libertarians [14][15] also appear often in his writings.

Goldberg was a supporter of the Iraq War and has advocated for American military intervention elsewhere in the world. He has defended historical colonialism in places such as Africa as more beneficial than it is generally given credit for; in one column, he suggested that U.S. imperialism on the continent could help solve its persistent problems. [16] In addition to supporting the U.S. invasion of Iraq, he implied treasonous motives to those who disagree.[citation needed] When he finally wrote in October 2006 that going in was a mistake, he called it a "noble" mistake and still maintained that liberal opponents to the war policy wanted America to fail: "In other words, their objection isn't to war per se; it's to wars that advance U.S. interests (or, allegedly, President Bush's or Israel's or ExxonMobil's interests). I must confess, one of the things that made me reluctant to conclude that the Iraq war was a mistake was my distaste for the shabbiness of the arguments on the antiwar side." [17]

He popularized and expanded on a commentary by the late Time writer, William Henry III. Henry had written on the subject of multiculturalism and cultural equality, stating that "[i]t is scarcely the same thing to put a man on the moon as to put a bone in your nose." Goldberg stated that "[m]ulticulturalism—which is simply egalitarianism wrapped in rainbow-colored paper—has elevated the notion that all ideas are equal, all systems equivalent, all cultures of comparable worth." [18]

He has recently published a column supporting finding an "Iraqi Augusto Pinochet" to bring stability to Iraq, stating that "Pinochet's abuses helped create a civil society." [19]

Humor and lighter topics

The "Goldberg File" frequently involves humor, often at the expense of liberals. Alec Baldwin, whom Goldberg insinuates cannot read, is a frequent target of such jibes. Goldberg has also been critical of the French and claims credit for popularizing the term "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" (first used on The Simpsons television program) to refer to them. Goldberg also makes occasional allusions to Star Trek and references to his anthropomorphized couch and his dog, Cosmo ("the wonderdog") [20]. More recently, Battlestar Galactica has become a favorite topic [21]. Goldberg also likes to link to "timewaster" online games in his postings at "The Corner".

Relations with other writers, public figures

On the left, Goldberg has publicly feuded with Juan Cole over U.S. Iraq policy and Air America Radio commentators such as Janeane Garofalo. Garofalo has accused Goldberg of being a chickenhawk on the Iraq War. On February 8th, 2005 Goldberg offered Cole a wager of $1,000 "that Iraq won't have a civil war, that it will have a viable constitution, and that a majority of Iraqis and Americans will, in two years time, agree that the war was worth it." [22] Cole refused to accept and the wager was never actually made. [23]

On the right, Goldberg had a friendly but sometimes-contentious relationship with Andrew Sullivan that became increasingly acrimonious over ideological differences. In October 2006, Goldberg wrote of Dick Morris, "I do not trust Dick Morris. Period."[24]

Goldberg and others at National Review Online (including Rich Lowry) broke with conservative writer Ann Coulter over statements she made about the September 11, 2001 attacks that they considered irresponsible. Coulter stopped writing for National Review Online after the publishing of her column on September 13, 2001, opining that "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. [25]

Family

Goldberg has a brother, Joshua John Goldberg. Their late father, Sidney Goldberg (1931-2005) [26], was Jewish, and their mother, Lucianne Goldberg, is Episcopalian.

Wikiquote has quotations related to Jonah Goldberg.

External links

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