Why do People Like Michelle Malkin?

There isn't a closet big enough to hold my gaiety.

I'm giddy gay over the possibility of Murtha the obstructioninst boob getting the boot.

Good ol' Stalkin Malkin, perhaps the looniest of all wingnuts on the web.

This is a chick who spent a considerable amount of time defending the practice of locking her own people up during WW2 here in America. I think that's about all anyone needs to know about her.

Cycloptichorn

Racism and the 'relocation centers'
Thursday, August 12, 2004
A little background

I have a little bit of professional background with Michelle Malkin. Back in 1994, I was working at the Bellevue Journal American as the editorial-page assistant, having an extended background in copy editing prior to that (I was just coming off a 3-year stint as the paper's news editor).

The JA was -- in keeping with the Republican-dominated Eastside -- a pretty conservative paper, and Michelle was one of our stable of columnists. We had picked her up from the L.A. Daily News, and were one of the few daily papers to do so. I had the job of editing Michelle's column, and occasionally had to phone her up with questions about factual issues.

Back then, she was really pretty responsive to such queries. If I happened to spot a factual problem with her piece, she was quite good about correcting it before we went to print. And if issues arose later (as they sometimes did with her work), she was reasonably straightforward, if occasionally evasive.

In any event, her stint with us evidently helped serve as a springboard for her being hired (by Mindy Cameron, a longtime friend and colleague) as a full-time columnist for the Seattle Times in 1996. She made a name for herself as a bit of a controversialist over the next three years. As her tenure progressed, there were increasing concerns raised over the professionalism and accuracy.

In early February of 1999, Malkin was really on a roll. First came a column attacking the state's Democratic attorney general for allegedly allowing drug criminals to get off scot-free. Then came another column attacking a local news-talk TV program for its failure to handle her in the high manner to which she was accustomed.

The former inspired, in short order, a letter from the state Attorney General's office pointing out that Malkin failed to even contact that office before attacking it (which those of us in the business knew constituted a Journalism 101 violation of basic ethics). It also pointed out several major errors of fact.

The latter column brought a lively response from her intended victim at the news-talk show, also pointing out the Malkin's version of "facts" are not always aligned with reality.

Malkin's journalistic standards (or lack thereof) clearly were a problem, and were remarked upon widely, especially in area newsrooms. I have no idea whether it affected her status at the Times, but Malkin announced in August she was moving on (though the paper continued running her occasional columns filed from her new home in Washington, D.C.).

She got in her own departing licks a little while after that. In the wake of the WTO riots that November, Malkin penned a singularly nasty column telling the city it deserved everything it got. As numerous respondents pointed out, Malkin couldn't even get her facts straight again -- but she sure was good at playing the vengeful loser.

[For an excellent and quite thorough examination of Malkin's career after leaving Seattle, be sure to check out Matt Stoller's lengthy exegesis about Malkin and the people who are behind her.]

Bad roots, bad fruit

In any event, it really is not any surprise to see Malkin once again hoist on the petard of the bad journalism that is the inevitable product of the ideologue -- having written an entire book attempting to defend one of the great historical blots on America's past, a book so misbegotten it should permanently stain her career.

Malkin, in keeping with her history here, has produced an ideological work that discards basic standards of truthfulness, accuracy and fairness -- not to mention basic decency -- all in the pursuit of "proving" a thesis whose factual basis is nearly nonexistent. And in the process, she's attempting not just to revise but to falsify history, just like David Irving and the Holocaust deniers, or Steve Wilkins and the slavery deniers. It is a contemptible enterprise.

In Defense of Internment: The Case for 'Racial Profiling' in World War II and the War on Terror is not just a deeply flawed book, it is a deeply dishonest one. As Tim Wu (posting at Lawrence Lessig's blog) observes, this text is a case of Orwellian "Blackwhite":

... or "a willingness to say black is white when party discipline demands this." In its advanced form it leads to "the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know black is white, and forget that one has ever believed the contrary."

Michelle Malkin, a journalist, has released a book that is does just this: it defends the eviction and incarceration of more than 70,000 American citizens during World War II. Her book "In Defense of Internment," takes the position that the Government was right to round up the Japanese then, and Arab-Americans now. The mainstream position that the internment was wrong (expressed in Ronald Reagan's apology), Malkin attributes to a "conspiracy."

It is true that, on rare occasion, something everything takes for granted is wrong, like, say, the Bohr model of the Atom. But more often, moral sense is restored by rebuttal --- we remember that black is, in fact, black, and regain our senses. This time sense is restored by this week's must-read Volokh Conspiracy which features two historians who destroy the book in every aspect. Malkin, it turns out, is more Ahmad Chalabi than Albert Einstein.

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2004_08_08_dneiwert_archive.html

Michelle's got guts. A trait despised by the left.

Malkins's "JAW-Dropping Political Miracle" Provides Big Fees For BMW Direct
By Andrew Tilghman - July 24, 2008, 12:41PM

The Devil is in the details, as they say.

Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin was breathlessly celebrating in yesterday's New York Post about how much money Republican Congressional candidate William Russell has been raising this year.

Never heard of him? You're not alone. Russell is challenging Rep. John Murtha for his Pennsylvania House seat, which is considered among the safest Democratic seats in the country.

Malkin was pointing out Russell's "JAW-dropping political miracle" in campaign fundraising. Indeed, Russel has raised almost $1 million so far this election cycle, a huge pull no doubt.

But guess who helps Russell run his massive, nationwide direct-mail fundraising efforts? Our old friends over at BMW Direct.

Russell is perfect for BMW Direct, which often raises tons of cash for candidates who look good on glossy mailers but ultimately spends nearly all the money raised on expenses related to the fundraising effort itself.

Lt. Col. William Russell is a clean-cut Army veteran who served in Iraq, the Gulf War and at the Pentagon on 9/11, according to a campaign Web site.

Malkin claims there's been a "great media wall of silence around Russell's upstart campaign." OK, let's break that silence and take a close look.

In the most recent quarter Russell raised $669,534, almost all from out-of-state donors who presumably are on BMW Direct's list of self-style conservatives with a good track record of responding to direct-mail fundraising.

At the same time, he spent $442,990, almost all of it on expenses related to the direct mail effort and paid to BMW Direct and its affiliates (some of which share the same downtown Washington office).

The only expenses that appear to be spent on an actual campaign totaled about $20,000 for Web site design, a low-budget video and a campaign consultant based in Pennsylvania rather than Washington.

He reports having $269,953 in cash on hand. But he also reports debts totaling $242,521 -- almost all for direct mail expenses to BMW Direct and its vendors.

So that leaves him only about $27,431 ahead -- not much for a guy who's raised a total of nearly $1 million this election cycle.

Meanwhile, Malkin suggests that Murtha is in trouble since he only "scraped together a measly $119,000." But Murtha isn't running a direct mail campaign with BMW Direct, so he actually has money left over to spend on things like renting a campaign office back in the 12th District.

And how much did Murturd pay Tilghman to write that rebuttal?

You probably can't find out, but, as you say... the devil's in the details.