NEW VILLAGE VOICE COLUMN UP...

...about the recent Democratic debate, and the odd reactions of the rightwing press -- including the puzzling insistence of some that Hillary Clinton is every bit the socialist Bernie Sanders is.

Whenever "Clinton" and "Socialism" are mentioned, Jonah Goldberg is summoned, like a Candyman who actually wants candy and keeps running his hook uselessly through bins of Smarties going "STUPID HOOK." Goldberg starts by making a wan joke about what a drag it was having to watch the debate ("I really resented watching the Democratic debate. I watched because it’s part of my job") when he could have been, oh, seeing if lying on three mattresses is more comfortable than lying on one, and if that maid weren't such a lazy little Mexican he could have found out.

Then Goldberg complains Hillary didn't have it hard enough because Chafee, Webb, and O'Malley were "like Mohammed, Jagdish, Sidney, and Clayton from Animal House." (The foreigners, the nerd, and the blind cripple, remember? Hyuk!) He compares Bernie Sanders to Alec Guinness in The Bridge Over the River Kwai because, Christ who can tell, maybe his Metaphor Butler was in the hospital this week and all he could remember was Guinness looked rilly beat too, just like Sanders, and fart. And of course Goldberg is mad that Sanders helped Clinton out with her email mishegas.

But he's especially pissed that Clinton called for a "new New Deal." Aha, he cries -- these liberals always want a new New Deal. See, Peter Beinart once called Obama a new New Deal! And in the few nanoseconds Obama had sufficient Congressional support to pass it, he gave us Obamacare, and that didn't solve everything (look, here's Megan McArdle telling us that it's a disaster -- whoops, that was years ago: Now she just says that it's not all that) so ob-viously "The New Deal is just a talisman in their undying faith in their own ability to guide society and make decisions for others better than people can make for themselves."

Finally Goldberg cries "it's all just so exhausting" -- Facilities! This stupid pen made my hand all crampy! -- and throws himself on his farting couch, murmurring:

And I guess what I resent most of all is the fact that I will spend the rest of my life arguing with people who not only think that their faith in progressivism and the State is smart and modern, but that their opponents are the ones who are stuck in the past. And in the process, they’ll keep making the country worse, with every failure providing the latest evidence that now, now, is the time for a new New Deal.

He doesn't know why he bothers. Oh, right -- legacy pledge!  Brightening, Goldberg muses that "pledge" reminds him of Lemon Pledge, which reminds him of Country Time Lemonade Mix and how good it tastes poured over a quart of sherbet. Goldberg triumphantly scrawls a shopping list for Carmelita. The struggle continues!

Oh, if you got distracted, please still read the column.