Letters posted here are associated with the following article:

53
Letters
Tuesday, April 10, 2007 12:00 AM

Michelle Malkin plays the victim card

The conservative blogger wants to know why I wrote about threats to Kathy Sierra, and not her. Here's my answer.

The letters thread is now closed.

View:
Tuesday, April 10, 2007 04:53 PM

different quality

Well, I don't agree with you, and I think Malkin summed it up herself nicely, describing herself as

Christofascist wingnut women bloggers who deserve what we get because we're just trying to use the web to spread poisonous conservative ideas.

That basically sums it up.

"Just as one calls into the forest, so it echoes back", an old proverb states. Does anybody wonder that the merchants of hate - as Malkin surely is one - reap what they sow ?

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 04:57 PM

"anti-Muslim racial profiling"?

Hey, Joan, please explain how profiling someone based upon their avowed ideological beliefs be it Islam, white supremicism, or Wicca is comparable to "racial profiling" i.e. profiling because of in-born, immutable physical characteristics?

And since Islam as we all know is practised by every major ethnicity, then profiling a Muslim would have no racial dimension. I mean do you seriously think people like Malkin who advocate profiling Muslims are less worried about 'white' Muslims be they Bosnian or German convert as oppossed to predominantly-Muslim ethnicities like Arabs, Malays, etc.

People kill because of what they believe, not because they have different amount of skin pigment. People who are supect of Muslims find concern with what they perceive as a uniquely violent religious doctrine, one which emmanates from the supposedly inerrant revelation of god that is the Qur,an (I am not a Jew or Christian, so don't bother bringing up violence in the Bible). It is time liberals defending Islamic 'civil rights' consider how they are playing the same victimhood game on behalf of Muslims that many Christians use and that defending a grossly illiberal ideology will come back to haunt us in time (just like the use of Muslim extremist by the US in the Soviet-Afghan conflict).

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 05:02 PM

Here's raising a glass to you, Joan!

You do a great job balancing critical, independent thinking (aka open-mindedness) with matters of civility and basic human dignity. I've been impressed with the non-defensive way you "shrug off" most of the criticisms you receive. It's nice that you're human. You listen. You care. You've been great.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 05:10 PM

i don't get it

what exactly is her area of expertise? which subjects, exactly, is she a renowned (or merely acknowledged) scholar of? her advanced degrees? her vast worldly experience?

why, exactly, does anyone with even a marginally clued perspective partiulalry care what she has to say about anything? much less actually bother to respond and/or engage her?

and yes, all of the above applies to coulter as well as malkin. perhaps we should just drop the pretense, and grab random sheltered, spoiled, over-ripe sorority princesses, and ask them their opinions about world afairs and the scoliological trends and issues that we're constantly struggling with, no?

and if that sorority bit sounds sexist, well, too bad. the only reason anyone knows either of those clowns' names is because they are relatively youngish and apparently female, and that is enough for the particularly pathetic on the far right to give them a platform, and enough for the equally pathetic to adore them. really, just thinking about it is remarkably nauseating to all but the most hardened opiate addicts and others equally used to regularly puking in their own mouths.

but that doesn't mean we have to pretend they have anything to say or anything to add to the conversation, do we? do we really need to dignify their deranged meanderings with a response?

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 05:22 PM

Typical conservative thinking?

Michelle Malkin's posted reaction is rather mind-blowing. She spends the bulk of her post expressing less anger at her own abusers, than at the Liberals she's accusing of not helping her.

It seems crystal clear which ideology is less interested in the empowerment and decent treatment of women as a class. Is this Stockholm syndrome at work here? The same sort of identification with the aggressor that seems so prevalent in gay or blacks conservatives, the Log Cabin Republicans or Justice Thomas?

Michelle Malkin could have mustered up enough empathy up to say that it's horrible what Kathy Sierra was subjected to, and left it at that. But standing up for women not being harassed, with no ameliorating attacks on liberals, would be viewed by her audience as being a "PC" sellout. Pardon my cynicism, but I don't think that would have helped her sales.

And this occurs to me as revealing the bottom-line real-world conservative worldview. A worldview that binds many people whose class interests are threatened by the Republican party - and guides them to betray their class for their personal advantage.

The worldview that belongs to not just the Malkins of the world, but the Log Cabin Republicans, the Colin Powells, the Secretary Rices, and far too many others.

The worldview that says: "Screw everyone else; all that really matters is how this affects me."

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 05:26 PM

Amazing.

MM's so obviously trying to score empty political points. Conservatives really do suffer from congnative dissonance, don't they? I don't see the conservative blogosphere being nearly as proactive in policing hate and bias, yet they seem to run around whining about it constantly.

I think Malkin completely missed a good opening there. She could have taken the opportunity to show some of that vaunted "compassion" she and her cohorts so richly squawk about. Of course, no such luck. I am honestly thinking that the neocon mindset is just fundamentally unable to drop out of power play mode for even one second- just one second!

MM is like a board poster who whines about trolls...then keeps on feeding them. As awful as this might sound, I think that she likes the attention on some level. All publicity is good publicity...ask her pal, Ann Coulter.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 05:48 PM

So Michelle Malkin is self-aware?

"As opposed to us Christofascist wingnut women bloggers . . . trying to use the web to spread poisonous conservative ideas." - Michelle Malkin

Who knew?

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 05:54 PM

Speaking of death threats . . .

Ms. Malkin conveniently omits her own participation in a blogging hatefest--she obtained the names and addresses of anti-war protesters at UC Santa Cruz from their police permit, then published them on her blog, encouraging harrassment. When called on her vile tactics, she refused to back down and refused to take the names and addresses down even as the protesters were called and tracked down by right-wing thugs responding to Malkin's blog.

Why doesn't someone point that out to her when she whines about being a victim?

Most Active Letters Threads

405

I'm thankful I'm not President Obama

Backers deride Katrina-style negligence, haters hate him more each day. Can this presidency be saved? Of course
320

Greg Craig and Obama's worsening civil liberties record

A new Time account of the fall of Obama's White House counsel sheds much light on rule of law issues.
318

Tough-guy John Bolton, hiding under his bed

As usual, right-wing pseudo-warriors are drowning in extreme cowardice.
153

Phil Carter's resignation from key detainee policy post

Many of the "War on Terror" policies he spent years condemning were ones expressly embraced by Obama.
137

A key British official reminds us of the forgotten anthrax attack

A vast array of establishment and expert sources do not believe this episode was really resolved.

View all »

Letters Help

Currently in Salon