Jonah and The Wail

Leave it to the Doughy Pantload to blame his failings on a little girl. After Tim Noah of Slate picked up on Goldberg's years of delays in publishing his first romance, Liberal Fascism: The Summer of My German Soldier, Goldberg posted this snippy retort:

But I will say this. He has absolutely no idea what he's talking about, which he basically admits. His assertion that the book's delayed for marketing reasons would be a flat-out lie if it weren't flat-out conjecture. As my wife, various friends and colleagues and sundry others can attest, the book is delayed because it's not done yet. The reasons for that have to do with any number of things (revisions, work distractions, my father's death, the birth of my child, etc etc) and, as far as I'm aware, marketing isn't even on the top ten. Noah, who hasn't read it, is invested in a theory and simply imagines facts to substantiate his usual sneering schtick.

After admitting that the book has been delayed because his earlier drafts were unpublishable dreck (requiring "revisions"), Goldberg uses his own child to excuse his dilatory ways. Only problem is, the blameless offspring was born months before Goldberg announced his intention to write the book. So the birth can't account for the years of delay identified by Goldberg's tormentors.

Of course, Goldberg also promised back in 2003 that "It'll be a big book." It's now a slim 272 pages, although for National Review Online readers, a book of stamps is a weighty tome.

In his response to Noah, Goldberg also simpers that his book "isn't what the Amazon description says." But the description of the book's contents on Amazon came verbatim from the publisher -- and is credited as such on other sites. So Goldberg's calling his own publisher a liar. I guess calling a Pantload publication "[i]mpeccably researched and persuasively argued" was too much even for Jonah's shovel to carry.

By the way, isn't knowingly using a false description of a product to sell merchandise, uh, what's the word I'm looking for ... oh, yeah ... fraud?

Look, I don't care if Goldberg or his ghost ever finish the book. The point is that Goldberg and his publisher represented the book would be out in 2005 and 2006 and etc., and solicited the advanced sale of copies based on those representations. If Goldberg lacks the competence or capacity to fulfill promises he made voluntarily, then he shouldn't bitch when people point out those facts.