Michael Tomasky has written a dismissive review of Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism for The New Republic. “Tedious,” “inane,” and “deeply frivolous” are among its bouquets. Despite his contempt, however, Tomasky acknowledges that Liberal Fascism raises a serious question, one for which neither Tomasky nor liberalism generally has a comparably serious response.

The question is whether there is a slippery slope between liberalism’s social reforms and totalitarianism. It is a danger that conservatives have been warning about for decades; The Road to Serfdom and Capitalism and Freedom are two books that remain on conservatives’ shelves because they sounded this alarm. Liberal Fascism extends Hayek’s and Friedman’s arguments by contending we’ll have a more acute awareness of the possibility that liberalism and totalitarianism will converge beyond the horizon in front of us if we understand the ideas and language they shared beyond the horizon behind us. Goldberg excavates the intellectual origins of modern liberalism to reveal a disturbing contrast between its zeal for social reforms and a petulant impatience with all the ways liberal democracy can thwart those reforms.

Tomasky responds to this point by insisting that the slope between liberalism and totalitarianism is just not that slippery. Something “deep within liberalism . . . prevents it from degenerating into fascism, and that is its explicit recognition that the state must serve both common purposes and individual liberty.” When social reform “crosses the line into coercion,” true liberals “get off the train, and do their noncoercive best to derail it.”

Tomasky’s reassurance is a pretty good Rorschach test. If you find it so obvious and commonsensical as to wonder why the point even needs to be made, your politics and instincts are reliably liberal. If, instead, you find it as smug and condescending as the official spokesman who blandly announces, “Yes, we’re aware of the problem and have it under control,” while smoke seeps out from beneath the closed door behind him, you are a conservative.

The reason Tomasky’s reassurance does not reassure is that the more you examine the theory and practice of modern liberalism the less you understand why the slope is not slippery. You might think, for example, that if he had more time or space, Tomasky would describe, tangibly, the “something” that keeps liberalism from degenerating into fascism. Or that he would give us the coordinates of the “line” that defines the degree of coercion that liberals simply won’t tolerate, no matter how laudable the social reforms being advanced. But Tomasky’s other writings, and those of liberal advocates and theoreticians generally, do not make these distinctions any more distinct. The reassurance, such as it is, comes down to postulates about liberals’ sensibilities and character: We’re nice people, not thugs, who want to do good things, but have no interest in resorting to force to get our way.

Most liberals are nice people, not ogres pretending to be nice. But niceness isn’t always enough; principles can be useful, too. Put together enough nice people, determined to do enough nice things, and the line defining the sort of coercion that must not be used gets pretty elastic. Think of the nice professors and deans who have enacted speech codes at dozens of colleges to promote the nice goals of tolerance and self-esteem.

The Washington Post runs a story today about the intractability of rural Ohio voters that--while it offers some interesting observations for more thoughtful analysts to ponder--is a good illustration of the condescension and bewilderment of the media in the face of common sense and decency. In order to process the facts encountered in the investigation for this article, the author (Kevin Merida, whom I’m told also wrote a nasty hatchet job of a book on Clarence Thomas), has to slip into the "these hicks are too dumb to know better" mode of reporting.

His assault on the unsophisticated rubes of rural Ohio begins with an interview with a Democratic Party Chairman in Darke County, James Surber. Surber expresses his frustration with the inability of the people in his county to understand their own interests. "I have always said that the three most baffling questions you could ponder forever are: What’s the meaning and purpose of life? Why is Bruce Willis a star? And why do farmers vote Republican?" Surber said. But Surber, in typical Democrat arrogance, doesn’t think he needs to waste his time with imponderables. He has a practical understanding of rural Ohio voters. It’s all about abortion and guns, you see.

Former John Edwards adviser, Dave Saunders, agrees. "It’s all social and cultural," said Saunders, "It has nothing to do with policy. It’s about wedge politics. And the way you pull wedgies out is simple -- you say it’s a lie." To illustrate this, he pointed out that Harry Reid has an A+ rating with the NRA. Apparently Saunders thinks that all his people have to do in Ohio is go around talking about how Dems also love God and guns, skirt the abortion question, and things will come up roses there for them in the fall. Their strategy is to cut losses in rural Ohio counties like Darke--where Bush won in ’04 with 70% of the vote. But they see Southeastern Ohio (my old stomping grounds) and small northern Ohio towns (like Ashland?) as the big prize in this election.

They are right about that much. The area in question and the big prize in this election probably will be Southeastern Ohio and small towns in the northern part of the state. The Dems can’t win without them. But if this article is anything like a real indication of the means by which they intend to go about gaining favor in these areas, I think they’ve got some more hard lessons to learn about rural Ohio voters. For example, take a look at Troy Balderson’s webpage--a family friend who just secured the GOP nomination for State Rep in Zanesville. Guns and God certainly feature prominently among his priorities. But that’s far from all that motivates Balderson or his voters. Indeed, his GOP opponent in the primary lost because these were the only issues he talked about. Balderson is talking about taxes, excessive government regulation and interference in business and health care, and the harm these things do to the local economy. That message rings true in Southeastern Ohio.

1. Hillary’s dilemma: She should drop out, she can’t possibly win. She can’t drop out, she just won some big victories.

2. The MSM media has clearly flipped to her. The reason: Her continued campaign is good news. It saves us from months of political boredom.

3. Her only chance is somehow to discredit Obama as a plausible nominee. I hope she doesn’t go too far down this negative road, and that the MSM doesn’t help her make mountains out of the molehills that have emerged so far. As Peter points out below, the Democrats have no alternative these days but to rely on her self-restraint.

4. McCain owes Huck big for staying in the race and allowing him to grab the headlines last night and this morning.

5. Here’s one rejoinder to the professor I talked about before who’s voting for Obama in the hope he will govern as a Democrat. One of my colleagues says it’s conceivable she’ll vote for McCain in the hope he’ll govern like a Democrat. Her hope, of course, is more reasonable, and it may be one reason that arguably Mac is the strongest possible Republican candidate.

6. One of Hillary’s comments this morning suggests that her real goal now is a Obama-Hillary ticket. And as Steve Thomas points out below, the role of the Superdelegates may end up being to facilitate that statesmanlike conclusion to this contest.

Michael Gerson considers what the opening of an Obama Administration would look like, if he kept his promises in foreign policy. His conclusion?

Obama’s 100-day agenda would be designed, in part, to improve America’s global image. But there is something worse than being unpopular in the world -- and that is being a pleading, panting joke. By simultaneously embracing appeasement, protectionism and retreat, President Obama would manage to make Jimmy Carter look like Teddy Roosevelt.

Which is why President Obama would probably not take these actions -- at least in the form he has pledged. Sitting behind the Resolute desk is a sobering experience that makes foolish campaign promises seem suddenly less binding.

But it is a bad sign for a candidate when the best we can hope is for him to violate his commitments. And that’s a good sign for John McCain.

There was a time when everyone read--or claimed to have read--Robert Bellah’s Habits of the Heart. I came to think of him as the contemporary equivalent of Tocqueville--not in the sweep and penetration of his vision, but rather in being often quoted and perhaps less read.

Well, Bellah hearts Obama in ways that suggest that he hasn’t read (or perhaps understood) his Tocqueville. A snippet:

In Habits of the Heart I and my coauthors described four traditions that are powerful in America today. We called our primary moral language “utilitarian individualism,” the calculating concern for self-interest that is natural in our kind of economy, and a language that all candidates, Republicans and Democrats, must often use as they appeal to various interest groups to support them. But we have three secondary moral languages that give a greater richness and moral adequacy to our discourse (even as they are often shunted aside by the dominance of the language of self-interest), expressive individualism, biblical language, and the language of civic republicanism. All candidates use the language of expressive individualism when they try to show us their human side, tell their individual stories and the stories of those who support them. But the substantial alternatives to the language of utilitarian individualism are biblical and civic republican. Biblical language, like all the others, comes in several forms, but here I am referring to the language of Martin Luther King Jr. and William Sloane Coffin—that is, a language that expresses the dominant biblical concern for those most in need, a language that reminds us of our solidarity with all human beings. When Obama says “we are our brothers’ keepers; we are our sisters’ keepers,” when he suggests, as he does in so many ways, that we all need one another, all depend on one another, he is using that biblical language at its most appropriate. And in his emphasis on public participation at every level, in his refusal to take money from lobbyists and political action committees, he is reviving the spirit of civic republicanism, of voters as citizens responsible for the common good, not political consumers concerned only with themselves.

There’s lots of biblical langauge about responsibility, sin, and hte next life that Bellah overlooks, even as Tocqueville doesn’t. And Tocqueville’s melding of religion and "civic republicanism" is much more subtle and locally oriented. But, unlike Bellah, Tocqueville’s view of the American scene isn’t frankly--I’d almost say rabidly--partisan.

Hillary’s "win" of yesterday seems significant to all of us because our minds are still in the winner take all mode; yet she hasn’t gained on Obama in delegate count, and I don’t think she will by more than a dozen even if she wins Pennsylvania by double digits, which she will. She hasn’t really won anything; the so called wins just give her psyche a boost to press on. She feels better about herself and her prospects, so she will psuh on with even greater vigor.

As I write this, Hillary Clinton has won Ohio and is holding onto a narrow lead in Texas. If the exit polls in the latter are to be trusted, she could well pull out a victory there.

I watched a bit of the Clinton campaign festivities in Ohio and noted that both Ted Strickland and HRC herself mentioned Michigan and Florida. In listing the "battleground states" that she’d won, she included Michigan (where of course Obama wasn’t on the ballot).

The current Clinton argument seems to be that--so far as November is concerned--Obama’s victories in hitherto red states don’t mean much. Democrats are unlikely to win there, so Obama’s strength there shouldn’t sway anyone. The states that really matter are the most competitive ones, the purplish ones, the ones she’s winning. If I were a superdelegate, I’d at least take that argument seriously. I’d also take Obama’s reply seriously. (Will, for example, his young supporters turn out in extraordinary numbers for Hillary? I doubt it.) There are of course argument other than electability to be made, but let’s set them aside for the moment.

But the mention of Florida and Michigan should, as Bill Kristol put it on, yes, Fox, send chills up the spines of Democratic functionaries. If it’s close, the Clintonistas are going to make a stink about those states. Perhaps some of that can be avoided through a do over in Florida (and in Michigan?), but talk about changing the rules in the middle of the contest!

All the major homeschooling organizations in California are concerned. The case, which I discussed at length here, seems to have taken them by surprise. HSLDA had this to say:

The opinion holds that homeschooling is not a legal option in California. HSLDA strongly disputes this interpretation of California law. We believe that the court made a mistake when it relied on two decisions reached in the 1950s in order to show that homeschooling is not a legal option.

If the opinion is followed, then California will have the most regressive law in the nation and homeschooling will be effectively banned, because the only legal way to homeschool will be for the parent to hold a teaching certificate.

The court may well be right about the letter of the law, but the administrative interpretation of the law has clearly been more permissive. Whether it will continue to be so is an open question. At the moment, this decision applies only to these particular children; anyone who wants to pull other kids out of a homeschool setting and commit, er, place them in a more formal educational setting would have to seek a court order, citing this decision as a precedent. The state education bureaucracy is under no obligation to prefer the court’s reading of the law’s requirements to its own, though I suppose that it’s possible that they could use this as an excuse to crack down on homeschooling. The state legislature could also weigh in, indicating its preference as to how the law should be understood and administered.

Hugh Hewitt posts a notice of a new National Geographic program called, "Aftermath Population Zero," which considers what the world would look like were there no human life on earth.

The most interesting sentence of the description might be this one: "After being controlled by humanity for millennia, nature reclaims the earth."

Do the powers that be at The National Geographic Society think that humans fundamentally unnatural? That would explain alot. Is Environmentalism, in its strong, quasi-religious form, misanthropic?

Update. On his blog, Jonah Goldberg posted this pearl of environmentalist wisdom, via Todd Seavey:

Some of the reasons for this are familiar, others are less familiar and more particular to this year. I am glad to see, however, that John McCain recognizes the importance of Ohio. What remains to be seen is whether he will master a capacity to speak to Ohioans.

I’ll never forget the day I met Gary Gygax, the geek-culture icon who created Dungeons & Dragons, and who just passed away this morning. It was at Gen-Con, which at the time was the country’s biggest game convention. My parents--in what they still consider one of their worst parenting decisions--had allowed me to make the trip with a friend, on a Greyhound Bus, from Pittsburgh to Racine, Wisconsin. Monster Manual II had just come out, and he stopped me to ask if he could see my copy. It turned out that something that he wanted to be included wasn’t, or something that he wanted left out was included, or something like that. I wasn’t quite following what he was saying. For me, a pimply-faced kid about to start high school, it was like meeting Elvis. He thanked me, signed my book, and went on his way. That made the whole trip worthwhile.

That was nearly thirty years ago. Last summer, when my nephews came to visit, we played their version of D&D, which was a far cry from the game I remembered. I don’t think Gary’s name was even on the box; he had sold the rights long ago to a company called Wizards of the Coast.

No, not the classic book, but rather Jay Cost’s sketch of the arguments the Clintonistas might make if she starts winning again.

He points out that neither Clinton nor Obama can win enough pledged delegates in the remaining contests to secure the nomination. It will come down to superdelegates, who have to be persuaded. I’ve alreadydiscussed the Obama argument. As Jay sketches it, Clinton’s would be roughly the same, with a wrinkle. She can make a potentially plausible claim (if she wins Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania) that she has won the majority of the votes (her case is helped if you count Florida as well). So far, that’s no different from the Obama argument. But she can also argue that caucuses (Obama’s strength) are "undemocratic" because they exclude people and because they overweight the influence of the generally elite participants. (Consider the irony of the classic democratic institution--a version of the town meeting--being regarded as "less democratic" than the bare act of voting, which is potentially pretty far from deliberative, as well as being not at all communitarian.)

I’ll end by quoting our friend Jon Schaff:

As an American I have no dog in this fight. But I must say, as a political scientist I am now rooting for Hillary Clinton because it would be lovely to see this argument play out in the public square.

1. Those who want to hear my soul-mending message of hope and change and love this week will have to come to the meeting of THE PRESIDENT’S COUNCIL ON BIOETHICS. It will be from 9-5 on Thursday (the 6th) and Friday morning at the Hotel Palomar in Arlington. There will be some excellent sessions on American health care (and I invite Senator McCain to come and get informed) and the ethics of of newborn screening.

2. On Friday morning at 9:45, they’ll be a fabulous panel featuring Jean Bethke Elshtain, Steven Pinker, and Evan Brann on the just-released HUMAN DIGNITY AND BIOETHICS: ESSAYS COMMISSIONED BY THE PRESIDENT’S COUNCIL ON BIOETHICS.

3. You need to get a copy of HUMAN DIGNITY AND BIOETHICS, which includes contributions by Daniel Dennett, Robert Kraynak (and an argument between Dennett and Kraynak), Patricia S. Churchland, Diana Schaub, Charles Rubin, Richard John Neuhaus, Gil Meilaender, Leon Kass, Susan Shell, Ed Pellegrino, Rebecca Dresser, and many others.

4. No book on dignity would be complete without ME in it. My contributions include "Modern and American Dignity" and "Commentary on Meilaender and Dennett."

5. The new issue of PERSPECTIVES ON POLITICAL SCIENCE is also out, and it includes a symposium on Dr. Pat Deneen’s DEMOCRATIC FAITH, which features our own Joe Knippenberg.