Quel Fromage!

When last I was paying any attention, Ronald Radosh had just published one of the less memorable specimens of the"disillusioned radical turns right" memoir. I have rather a taste for that sort of thing. The psychology of the genre is fascinating, if not full of infinite variety.

But Radosh was no Whitaker Chambers. He wasn't even Ben Gitlow after he'd been doing the schtick for a few years and turned into a bore. Then again, the fault may not have been with the author; at least not entirely. It could be that I have grown jaded.

In any event, Radosh has again imposed himself upon my eyeballs, after almost eight years, via Pajamas Media, which comes as a surprise because at last report PM (hey, now, how did thatcoincidence go unnoticed?) was about to go under.

The article in question by Radosh is of interest -- to the degree that it is -- mainly for the following:

I received a lengthy communication a few days ago on Obama's program from a historian who considers himself a man of the Left, who believes that what is currently called the Left is in reality a"sectarian proto-Fascist" group, for whom Obama is a willing instrument. This historian puts his conclusion this way: Obama, he thinks, is playing the crisis angle not just for New Deal reform,"but to advance a state-command agenda, leading to a party-state regime...=fascism American style." All who hold"liberal democracy dear," he writes,"across left and right need urgently to coalesce...and realign for a political movement to rejuvenate American Liberal Democracy."

What a coincidence! I have heard precisely the same thoughts expressed in my own neighborhood by an unkempt figure who occasionally announces that he is a cheese omlet, inviting passers-by to sprinkle him with paprika.

Now, I'm no breakfast chef, so won't get into an argument about that, nor have I asked if this fellow" considers himself a man of the Left." But it's a small world, and you do have to wonder if they might be the same person.