A Televised Thrashing That's Never Been Made With Such Detail Or Care

Jon Stewart obliterated Jonah Goldberg last night, and apparently there's 12 minutes of the interview that we at home didn't get to see. PLEEEZE, put it on the Web somewhere. I'd pay to see it and I'd give all the money to the striking writers. Because what we did see was genius.

Most touchy moment for Jonah came when Stewart asked him if one of the things he was against was people throwing around the charge "fascism" far too easily. Jonah said yes, then Stewart picked up a copy of the book and simply pointed to the title, "Liberal Fascism" -- adding, so why are you doing this?

Jonah got all pissy and does what he always does, accusing Stewart of not reading his book (not that Goldberg managed to read any of the primary source material about fascism, in particular Mussolini's "The Doctrine of Fascism"). But I want to focus on another thing he said. He criticized Hillary Clinton for wanting to "put big TV screens everywhere and tell us all how to raise our kids." This is hyperbolic, of course, and Stewart dialed it back. Turns out what she was talking about were the kiosks we're starting to see at gas stations and supermarket checkout lines, which right now have paid advertising. So she's basically talking about replacing the ads... with public service announcements. PSAs, you see, are fascist. I wonder if that means Pantload considers Nancy Reagan and her "Say No To Drugs" campaign was fascist.