Who's Fascist Now? The irony of the left's favorite epithet

The Weekly Standard reports:

Back during his 1976 campaign for president, Ronald Reagan made the offhand comment to Time that "Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal." When Reagan finally grasped the Republican nomination in 1980, Democrats gleefully retrieved that remark to use as proof of Reagan's supposed extremism. The media dutifully obliged, pressing Reagan on what he could possibly have meant with such an odd and inflammatory comment.

To the dismay of his campaign managers, Reagan defended the remark: "Anyone who wants to look at the writings of the Brain Trust of the New Deal will find that President Roosevelt's advisers admired the fascist system. .  .  . They thought that private ownership with government management and control à la the Italian system was the way to go, and that has been evident in all their writings." This was, Reagan added, "long before fascism became a dirty word in the lexicon of the liberals." The Washington Post was agog: "Several historians of the New Deal period questioned by The Washington Post said they had no idea what Reagan was referring to."

With the arrival of Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, neither the media nor self-satisfied liberals will be able to retreat any longer behind such a veil of ignorance.

Here's Jonah Goldberg's book.For the best book on FDR and the fascist elements of the New Deal click on the link.