Atrios highlights a great article in Editor and Publisher that covers a recently uncovered letter from Upton Sinclair to a California lawyer talking about the Sacco and Vanzetti case. Unfortunately, the article talks about how the contents of that letter have been used by right wing tool, National Review editor, and syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg to smear Upton Sinclair.

Before I go any further, I want to suggest that everyone read the article. It’s a fascinating bit of history and a well written story. The politics of Goldberg’s response only motivated the article but aren’t central to it.

Sinclair wrote a book, Boston, that was ultimately sympathetic to Sacco and Vanzetti’s case. Because of that, Goldberg decides to (yet again) bash liberals. He ends with:

Never mind. Clooney’s fans, like Sinclair’s, always order the usual. And always seem to get it.

Quite pithy. And ultimately amusing considering the, uh, paucity of diverse opinions at the National Review. One might say the same of Goldberg’s fans who, like Rush Limbaugh’s fans or Bill O’Reilly’s fans, always order the usual victimhood and liberal bashing and deceit. And, they always seem to get it.

Of course, any article that begins a polemic against some ill-defined group of people with a quote from a movie star, well… that might be a warning flag.