Jonah Goldberg – Heartthrob of the Right and Big Liar!
Are conservatives really this stupid? On the dust jacket of his new book, “The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas,” best-selling conservative author and commentator Jonah Goldberg is described as having “twice been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.” In fact, as Goldberg acknowledged on Tuesday, he has never been a […]
Are conservatives really this stupid?
On the dust jacket of his new book, “The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas,” best-selling conservative author and commentator Jonah Goldberg is described as having “twice been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.”
In fact, as Goldberg acknowledged on Tuesday, he has never been a Pulitzer nominee, but merely one of thousands of entrants.
When this bit of résumé inflation was pointed out by a reporter for msnbc.com, Goldberg said he hadn’t meant to mislead anyone and removed the Pulitzer claim from his bio at National Review Online. (Here’s the page before and now.) And he added, “I never put it in the bio in the first place.”
Goldberg is apparently shifting blame to the publisher, Penguin. They are calling it a “innocent mistake”.
But the problem with that? This ain’t the first time:
When Goldberg’s “Liberal Fascism” came out in January 2008, his employer National Review Online announced that Tribune Media Services, which carries Goldberg’s opinion columns, had “nominated” Goldberg for a Pulitzer in commentary.
The liberal blog Daily Kos then pointed out that the Tribune doesn’t choose Pulitzer nominees, writing about “Goldberg’s faux Pulitzer.”
MSNBC has obtained a statement from the president of Sentinel Publishing, which is an imprint of Penguin. In it you hear a lot of minced meat white-washing going on. The interesting part is at the end:
Attached to the publisher’s statement was an internal note from the Penguin publicist, cautioning author Goldberg not to say another word.
It really sounds like they are worried about some legal issues. Perhaps false advertising?
The problem there is that the lie is now out there. Not only that, but it’s a lie that has a history spanning four years. On top of that there is the question of why a well known publicist didn’t fact check and correct it before going to the printers. These are all very serious problems facing the number one conservative publicist and one of the top conservative authors. Perhaps they can start doing work for Romney now.
