RESPONSE TO JONAH GOLDBERG'S USA TODAY COLUMN

This letter was sent to USA Today in response to a curmudgeonly whine by freedom and democracy opponent Jonah Goldberg, who approves of young American Muslims being sent to fight- and die- in the war championed by Goldberg while he cowers in his parents' basement; but he opposes their being allowed to vote for President

Here's an election question that everyone should be asking: why do leading publications like USA Today permit bloviators like Jonah Goldberg to appear on their pages? Mr. Goldberg's post election column (Election questions no one ever asks) shed no light on any issue. It was simply a 900+ word whine about the election results from a "pundit" who has been so famously wrong on so many subjects that if he were a football coach his won-lost record would make him unemployable in his profession. Cranky Goldberg's latest column disses young voters, early voting, and voters who couldn't decide whether they were more "anti-Republican" or "pro-liberal"-- in short, everything that combined to defeat his candidate and his party.

What would make Mr. Goldberg's column slightly more tolerable would be to provide the same information- such as the player's batting average- that appears in the baseball box scores on the sports page. That way readers can marvel that someone whose analytical ability misses so often can still earn a living tapping out words on the computer in his parents' basement . On February 8, 2005, Goldberg wrote: "I predict that Iraq won’t have a civil war, that it will have a viable constitution, and that a majority of Iraqis and Americans will, in two years time, agree that the war was worth it.” Almost four years later, with bombs still going off on a daily basis, millions of Iraqis living in fear or refugees in other countries, and a roused American populace having voted in the first anti-war presidential candidate in history, Goldberg's profound yet unerring instinct for missing the mark continues to marvel. Here's a more recent gem: on September 9, 2008, Goldberg wrote that John McCain's pick of Sarah Palin as his nominee for Vice President "has Team Obama rattled and in danger of choking." He went on to say that "Obama doesn't stand up very well against Palin. All of the mythic themes of Obama's political narrative -- the ethics reformer, the bipartisan, the new kind of politician -- all look like press-release material next to Palin's accomplishments."

In baseball it's three strikes and you're out. How many more whiffs does Mr. Goldberg receive before he gets the boot?