Thomas Frank: "Taking names: Anti-liberalism in theory and practice"
Thomas Frank's latest article, from the February issue of Harper's (pp. 85-8), focuses on Bernie Goldberg's screed 100 People, and reminds me of all the reasons I wish he were a more prolific writer. Frank's pen issues a devastating corrective to Goldberg's relentless insistence that liberals "through sheer verbal effort, and largely without access to the levers of power, nevertheless manage to empower America." (pp. 87-8)
Frank also makes the common-sense observation that:
"Not only is conservatism the ideology of the powerful but conservatives are in command of all three branches of government. And yet the offense-taking continues. Outrage is the melodramatic resolution to which all the action inevitably leads, the canned emotional response that every anecdote generates." (p. 85)