No, she isn’t. She is a power-drunk populist who can whip up the masses, generate blog and media storms, and ignite false memes that lead directly to action that is bad for everyone, though especially for the victims of her rage. Go here for the complete story. It is a superb indictment of the right-wing noise machine’s ability to spread blatant falsehoods and endanger innocent people’s lives. Money quote:
In other words, [Jamil] Hussein is being arrested only because Malkin and her cohorts raised a ruckus questioning his very existence. As Lindsay says, maybe she can interview Hussein in his jail cell while she’s there on her upcoming trip.
In other words, Malkin and her friends have successfully criminalized the flow of any information outside of official Iraqi channels.
Nice going, gang. I’m sure the reporters on the ground in Baghdad will thank you for that.
This masterpiece led me to another masterpiece with lots of black humor and juicy quotes that demonstrate the wingnuts’ utter lack of shame or morality. Follow the links…. And never tell me she’s just an ordinary blogger. True, she’s a blogger, but she’s also a menace to society and a quintessential demagogue.
Update: Purely hilarious. Oh, the power of irony. Now, if only the story were a bit less tragic….
1
By Jeremiah
I’m not criticizing the choice of word, but I’m curious as to why you use the word “populist” to describe her. It’s an interesting epithet.
January 6, 2007 @ 6:32 am | Comment
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By richard
Populists use emotional arguments to touch their followers’ hot buttons and drive them into a frenzy. Like Huey Long, they exist by seizing onto such issues and whipping up the masses, usually to their own benefit, truth and morals be damned. This was the MO for Juan Peron, Hugo Chavez, Adolph Hitler and many others. They push people to irrational states of mind, usually transferring their rage to a scapegoat (as Chavez does frequently with the US, making them the devil incarnate and source of everyone’s woes). Malkin and Charles Johnson channel their readers’ ugliest fears and emotions toward hatred of Muslims and the media – all evil stems from these two sources. Hitler had Jews and Communists. McCarthy had Communists. Ahmadajinedad (sp?) has Israel. The campaign is usually carried out in the same way, with either a blatant lie or grotesque exaggeration. A good example was the Nazis’ inciting the masses to believe Jewish men threatened the purity of German women, that they were all rapists With Malkin, it’s an insistence that the media work hand in hand with terrorists and want our soldiers to die. And all the rage is channeled onto them – this instantly makes invalid all the negative news from Iraq, where we are actually winning but are being pushed toward defeat by the pro-terrorist NY Times, Reuters and AP.
For the single best post on this phenomenon I recommend a look at this. Populism is the bread and butter of the far-right bloggers and media like Matt Drudge and Bill O’Reilly, who love to sic the dogs onto made-up issues like the “war on Christmas” and, the ultimate straw man, “the liberal media.” Populists are always manipulating people for popular causes that are highly questionable, like lynching blacks and looking under the bed for communists or al qaeda sleeper cells. It keeps people excited and engaged; we love extreme sensations and someone to hate, as Orwell so well understood (two-minute hate, anyone?). Malkin is a walking, talking, firebreathing mass of hatred, which makes her blog so compelling, especially to people who don’t want to be bothered with research and facts. Her fanning the flames for internment of entire races, topped with the publication of her universally reviled and fact-free book In Defense of Internment, is perhaps the most vivid and disturbing example. What she does against the media and anyone who questions the war in Iraq is no better: If you report bad news, you must BE bad, you must be weeded out and set upon by Malkin’s noise machine. Read the Greenwald post I linked to; it’s all right there.
January 6, 2007 @ 8:02 am | Comment
3
By Jeremiah
Richard,
Thanks for the clarification.
January 6, 2007 @ 8:19 am | Comment
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By nanheyangrouchuan
I certainly not defending conservative coal-stokers (You forgot Anne Coulture, by far worse than Matt Drudge or Michelle Malkin) but just as there are those who attain fame and fortune by creating fear, those that tell us that “ideas and people aren’t bad, just different” are just as wrong. For example, Yale U’s international program that includes a very soft look at Kim Jong Il’s brand of leadership.
I laughed when Bill O’Reilly talked of a plot to put islam o’facists in pillow factories to blow our heads off while we sleep but at the same time islam and the west have been at each others’ throats for a long time (Ottoman empire >> Vlad the Impaler >> crusades)
January 6, 2007 @ 8:49 am | Comment
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By richard
Ann is a clown; she may well be a comedienne – I get the feeling she does it all to sell books and doesn’t mean a word of it. Malkin is much more insidious and action-oriented and sends her readers out on causes that are totally off the wall (like red crescents). I’d laugh at Michelle, too, if she hadn’t proven her ability to galvanize Right Blogistan. Coulter is a freak; Malkin is a demon.
January 6, 2007 @ 8:55 am | Comment
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By Bukko in Australia
So can you call her a demablog?
January 6, 2007 @ 10:12 pm | Comment
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By Tom - Daai Tou Laam
If we’re doing Sadly, No! retrospectives on the Ma-ding-a-ling Marriage (mrs. face and mr. writer), we would be remiss in not linking to this year in review.
January 8, 2007 @ 11:52 am | Comment