In this disgraceful post, Jonah Goldberg of the National Review describes himself as “basically” a sympathizer of the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who died over the weekend. Hitchens reminds us that Pinochet ordered the car bombing of Orlando Letelier in Washington, D.C. in September 1976. So, for Goldberg, a foreign leader who authorizes a terrorist attack on American soil is someone to sympathize with, “because he stopped the spread of Communism in his country and allowed it to prosper. There’s a good and rich argument to be had here.”
Oh, indeed there is. Goldberg’s strategy is to compare Pinochet to Fidel Castro and to note the left’s forgiving attitude toward the latter. I’ve denounced that very attitude on this blog. But Goldberg argues exactly like a Castro supporter — telling us that attacks on human rights and democracy are fine so long as certain social and economic goals are met. And Goldberg, an apologist for fascism, had the temerity to author a book called Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation from Mussolini to Hillary Clinton.
(Mussolini was a liberal?)
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