Leftists Upset at Even the Joking Suggestion that an Enemy of the U.S. Might be Eliminated

Jonah Goldberg of National Review, who is pretty good at riling up the left, wrote an article in the Chicago Tribune called, "Why is Assange Alive?" Despite the provocative title, if you actually read the column you will see that Goldberg is not calling for the Wikileaks head to be killed. Instead, he is making fun of those who see the CIA and U.S. intelligence in general as some sort of evil entity wreaking havoc throughout the world.

if you read left-wing accounts of the intelligence community, two versions dominate. The CIA and similar outfits are either evil and incompetent, or evil and supercompetent. Sometimes the folks at The Nation will mock the CIA for trying to blow up Fidel Castro with an exploding cigar. Other times some Oliver Stone type will insist that the military, or the CIA, or the National Security Agency or rogue elements from those quarters, managed to assassinate John F. Kennedy and pin it on a Marxist dupe named Lee Harvey Oswald.

Under either scenario, you'd think Assange, super-whistle-blower of the international left, would be a greasy stain on the Autobahn already.

He uses the fact that nothing has happened to Assange -- a mysterious disappearance or death in the case of the super-competent evil CIA, or a bungled assassination plot in the case of the incompetent evil CIA, as a tool to debunk either view of the agency. But that's going way too far for the left. Look at some of the hilarious reactions. Here's reading-comprehension challenged DougJ posting at Balloon Juice.

Jonah Goldberg calls for Julian Assange’s murder. ... If you don’t think that the right is serious about using violence to take power, you’re not paying attention.

Uh no, he didn't. And even if he had, advocating violence against an enemy of the U.S. has nothing to do with taking power and using violence against political opponents in America. But understanding that would require not just reading comprehension, but logical reasoning ability, something in short supply at Balloon Juice and similar blogs.

Then there is Talk Left, which is usually a bit more rational.

It's not a serious question of course. And Goldberg is not a serious person. But for all the fainting couches the "progressive elite" pundits fell on regarding Markos' book American Taliban, it is remarkable that this column was published by a major newspaper in the United States.

The left really hates Goldberg. There's not even the slightest comparison between Markos' ridiculous book, which even the left panned, and anything Goldberg wrote in that column. Why wouldn't it be suitable for a major newspaper? Most of the left is so far out of touch with mainstream American thought, that they are easily shocked by things that come from differing perspectives.

Here's the always laughable Alex Pareene at Salon.

The point of the column is to assert that Assange should be murdered, because he is obviously horrible, while also saying that Goldberg is "OK" with the government not assassinating a foreign national guilty of no actual crime, so that people can't say Goldberg called for Assange to be killed.

Goldberg specifically says he isn't calling for Assange to be killed, the point of the column is entirely obvious, but Pareene prefers to just make up his own interpretation in order to attack Goldberg.

Those are just a couple of the hysterical leftist reactions. They are horrified at even the joking suggestion, used to make an entirely different point, that the U.S. should do anything about a foreign national waging an information war against America, doing everything possible to undermine the U.S. war effort, and serving as a useful idiot for Al Qaeda and the Taliban.