Michelle Malkin shares her hate mail

[Verbatim reprinting of some of the material below may offend young or sensitive readers. Racial and sexual slurs are numerous--ed]

There are few people who find Michelle Malkin's columns as mind-numbingly odious as I do--of this I am sure. It's not with pride that I've said and written things about Malkin that run along the lines of "witless thug," but I certainly admit it, and I frankly think it's an accurate charge. So it has to be something pretty mean, thoughtless and downright threatening for me to actually have sympathy for her:

Malkin, you're a dumb fucking whore. You're a philipino piece of shit who should be wiping my ass. Go back to the massage parlor. Sucky sucky long time. How dare you thing you have any right to express any opinions in this country. You're a joke. Go back to nursing school. Whore.

Here's a tip. We know you are lyin' pond scum and a whore to your profession......and, not a very expensive whore at that. So............when we get rid of you neocons; how will you ever pay your rent? You're not good enough to make it as a real writer. fuck you; I hope you get cancer & die a horrible painful death all alone, with your collegues shunning you and the rest of us reading how wrong you are AND WHAT A CRUMMY WRITER YOU ARE.

There are several more, but they're far too depressing to keep quoting. I'm not so naive as to be unaware of hate mail, of course. One of my favorite lines in my favorite book The World According to Garp is when Roberta, the transgendered former tight end for the Philadelphia Eagles, is reading her hatemail and exclaims, "Oh God--this one hopes I'll get gangbanged by the Oakland Raiders." You knew you hadn't made it until you got your first death threat, if you were a black entertainer or pro athlete in the first half of the century. So the rantings of painfully ill-minded people sending such foulness to people they don't even know, shouldn't unexpectedly disturb me--particularly when their target is someone I find so professionally abhorrent.

But I am surprised. I only printed one of that kind, and maybe her choices for inclusion were heavy on the race baiting, but there is a consistent theme--calling her a "filthy whore," a "filthy Asian (or some tortured spelling of Fillipino) whore," and apparently the worst thing race bigots can say about Asian females: that she reminds them of the nonchalant hookers in Full Metal Jacket.

Even that wouldn't be 100% surprising, but the 2nd email jarringly made me think about who is sending these letters: LIBERALS. Is Pat Buchanan firing off angry Whore of Babylon emails to Michelle Malkin? Fuck no. I mean, what the heck is this?

Proverbs 69:69 counsels: "Like a whore who infects those she sleeps with, so doth the ultra-republican faux columnist infect her readers with lies." While you are looking in the mirror, cursing the Left because you weren't born blond, think about the above. Amen.

Do you know any ideological liberals or progressives who dig on heavy stereotyping of all imaginable kinds, and wishing strangers death by cancer? I mean, think of Dennis Kucinich sending email to Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell, calling him a massa's nigga doing massa's business. It doesn't compute. Equality and respect--that's Denny's gig, man. So who are these people? Is this just another extension of far left liberalism being the radical Islam of modern liberal thought? SDS, Black Panthers, ActUP, Eco-Terror, Ohio Tinfoilists...Air America Dittoheads? Who are they? Are they heretics we can safely jettison as cranks and Not Really Liberals? Are they simply enflamed by recent events? Just catching up to the echo chamber of hate and ad hominem the right has been marketing for 20 years? Agitated on hits of nitrous and the Daily Show?

Michelle, may your selfish, tiny-minded and frankly somewhat bigoted political sensibility never be truly ascendant in our country. But on behalf of the core progressive community, I apologize for the transgressions of others. This, you don't deserve and I'm sorry.

--TJ

Comments

[Zap]

Come on now. You spend enough time reading the comments at Atrios and Kos to know this kind of hate language isn't all that unusual from young liberals.

It speaks to maturity and generational type words. The uncensored internet and pervasiveness of Lenny Bruce dialog in every film worth a sh@t in the last ten years has created this enormously disrespecful and foul mouthed population. Political preferences have nothing to do with it. I call it Generation Porn.

I'm going to have to think of 10 quick posts to get your potty mouth of the main page and into the archives before my friends from Evangelican Outpost start flocking in though.

[Torrid]

Hey, I tagged it with a disclaimer. Only that one "fuck" was gratuitious. :)

Atrios and Kos are people talking amongst likemindeds, and frankly I've never seen anything much like that at all, no. Serious vitriol, yes. Bitch is used synonymously with her name. But the crazy stuff she printed? Nah.

[Zap]

Also ALSO!!@ Ms. Malkin engaged David Niewert at Orcinus blog over similar speech about a year ago, and Niewert tore her to shreds for lying about what he had said. Any follower of Niewert knows he extremely sensitive to bigotry and most eloquent in his criticism. He even issued a challenge to Malkin, but she declined. So, it wouldn't surprise me if she was embellishing from unsubstiated sources because she desires attention. There's a term for that, but I'll withhold it.

[Zap]

Wow. I cannot type tonight.

[Torridjoe]

link?
:)

[Zap]

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2004_08_22_dneiwert_archive.html

I think this is where it started. I'll try to find her retort and his defense and challenge if it further interests you.

[Torridjoe]

interests ME? How about the wide network of blog addicts who are dying to hear more dirt on Michelle??

I'm entirely too trusting for my own good, I suppose, but at this point I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt. And really, my post isn't so much about her--the less regard she gets, the better--as it is the hypocrites of the left who may talk a good game of equality and respect, but then write putrid garbage personally to people they think they have pegged.

[David Neiwert]

Actually, Zap, Malkin never engaged me, nor even acknowledged my existence. The only blogging critics of her book she acknowledged were Eric Muller and Greg Robinson.

Maybe what you're thinking of is the way she failed to live up to her word when she agreed to do a phone interview with me.

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2004/10/balkin-malkin.html

I suspect she refuses to acknowledge me because I compare her to Holocaust denier David Irving, something she considers beyond the pale, evidently. But as you can see, I know a great deal about Irving as well, having dealt with his acolytes for years, and it's a comparison I make neither lightly nor, I think, inaccurately.

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2004/09/malkin-and-historical-revisionism.html

You might be thinking of my dustup with Glenn Reynolds:

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2004/09/instaprojection.html

In any event, I couldn't agree more that this kind of hate mail is beyond the pale and unacceptable. Thanks for this post, TJ; it's needed.

(Hell, I'm disgusted by the people who describe Malkin as "self-hating." Please. Cheap armchair psychology is a specialty of the right; liberals who use it only establish their own claim to idiocy.)

Now, can I get some conservative to apologize for the hateful shit I've received over the years?

[Zap]

David Neiwert comments at Also Also? I think I'll write a post about THAT.

Seriously David, allow me to humbly confess, as TJ can affirm, I mentioned weeks ago, that this conservative considers you his favorite blogger. The series on Rush and the other on Psuedo-fascism are incredible. I comment occasionally on your blog under the psuedo Not Right, and have ruffled a few feathers therein, but we are quite likeminded. If I have a blogfather or a writer to emulate, it be you, and I plan to expand upon pseudo-fascim here from a Christian perspective.

Thanks for the clarification above. Yes, it was the failure to make the interview that I mistakenly referred to as a challenge. I stand corrected, but defend myself based on info overload.

There you go torrid. Many links from the source to which I referred.

Oh David, stick us in your extensive blogroll. A progressive and a paleo/traditional conservative in defiance of all that is going wrong would be a fitting addition. Please! :)

Also also, your comments on rural America and how the Dems need to approach it needs to be forwarded to the new DNC chair whomever it be.

[Zap]

"Now, can I get some conservative to apologize for the hateful shit I've received over the years?"

If you were an attention whore you could post it, and I would issue the rebuke of hatred and a blanket apology for all conservatives, but I doubt many of them care.

[G Davis]

If you'll pardon the interruption here, I can't believe you haven't seriously considered this *hate mail* is not a total fabrication on Ms. Malkin's part.

I certainly wouldn't put it past her.

Although the Generation Porn theory also holds water. As the parent of a 17 year old, I do often wonder where the mouth came from. And it's not just the mouth...it's an overall self absorbtion. Hopefully time and the school of hard knocks will take care of some of it. ;)

And thanks for the good reading. I've been cruising around all the blogs the last few days and have found some seriously good places.

Thank you all for the effort...many lurkers like me truly appreciate it.

[Zap]

G Davis, you're most welcome, and thank you for the kind words. If you can make it through my mess of typos in the comment above starting with Also ASLO, I did suggest that Malkin could be embellishing from unsubstantiated sources in an effort to generate attention. I too would not put it past her, but we tread ugly waters by ignoring her posted email. I'm sure hundreds of editorial writers could post similar hatred directed at their opinions and beliefs. So, hatred should be the primary topic; Malkin herself secondary.

[G Davis]

I agree the apparent rise of hate, real hate, is something to be discussed and hopefully changed. Hate is a strong word with strong meanings to me.

I don't know if y'all are old enough to remember the 50's, but there was a similar, albeit quieter stream of hate running through society. One did not step outside the bounds for fear of being cut completely from the herd, and once cut there was no hope for redemption. The we -v- they sentiment was there just as much as it is today, but it was more understood than blatant. I believe those are the *simpler times* that many yearn for where definitions were definate, there was black and white, no grey. Mores were what they were without question. Life was simpler. It was also far more restrictive, but many forget that.

Today there's a brashness that wasn't around then. The 60's and 70's were more brash, but not so overtly vitriolic. The 80's and 90's were a rather wasted time of transition back to the seperatism that is apparently today.

I'm logging that all from my personal perspective of course, and it's really interesting to watch myself react to eras as I age.

I am shocked by the intolerance of today, from all corners. Conversation appears to be a lost art. Drive the freeways anywhere for an illustration of the tunnel vision folks have developed. Folks need a lane, they take it with no care there are others trying to merge. The self absorbed, don't question or challenge me. I need what I need when I need it. That attitude is evident in every part of life today.

But today isn't entirely different than the 50's were. I blame the reactionism of the young adults today on my generation...we indulged and coddled to an extreme. We encouraged reaction without fear of reprecussion. We wanted our children to be free of the shackles we were raised with where you truly were not allowed to disagree with adults overtly. I know all of you have heard the *if I'd said that to my parents, I'd have been knocked across the room*. It's true.

Problem is, we created a generation of folks that don't know social graces well. That don't know communication requires listening more than speaking.

The backlash is the longing to go back to those *simpler times*...pardon me while I gag at that concept.

It's places like this and some of the other really good blogs that can help change some of that. Hopefully these sorts of sites can begin steering society toward the hopefulness of true enlightenment...that all folks of all ilks are valuable parts of the whole fabric. That conversation can carry with it disagreement without derision.

Now all that said, Malkin IS a media whore who WILL say and do anything for the shock value in my opinion. Even if those emails weren't fabricated, who else would publish them in the manner she did? Why publish them in the manner she did? To stir the pot some more? To attract more attention? To polarize more as that helps sales?

She's not alone...there are *shock jocks* on both sides. They sell.

That's the part that's truly sad...that society will not only indulge in their tripe, but relish it.

Keep up the good work. God I sound like my dad... ;)

[Torrid]

OK, G, let's not get carried away here. If we keep getting comments that are better written and more insightful than the posts that spurred them, we're going to have to shut that option off. :)

I can't comment on era culture personally before the 70s, but my readings of the prior two decades match what I think you touched upon. I wonder if you've seen the Todd Haynes film Far From Heaven. The family in that film is a little out there even for today, but Haynes does IMO a great job of capturing the social pressures of the "proper" classes. I'm much more interested in the 60s, which was as you say a more exuberant but less self-conscious kind of brashness than we have now. We seem to have wrapped that energy in a sleeve of detached irony and cynicism, as if it's not OK to enjoy being carelessly excited.

Malkin wants the sympathy, and to make her point that she's superior to the hateful Left. She got me on #1, but at best she's no better on #2.

Thanks for enhancing the discussion, G.

[G Davis]

I have not seen Haynes film, but will see if I can find it somewhere...any ideas?

I watch American Dreams with my daughter and all her friends every Sunday night. It's not entirely realistic in it's presentation, but it does hit my personal experience in that time of societal turmoil. The shock displayed at women wanting college, the war, the intro of drugs to further distort the generational gap that existed then among other things...it was an interesting time, to be sure and it's fun to go back and revisit even a distorted image of it.

The kids watch it first because they like the gathering time...sort of the Lawrence Welk/Bonanza understood familial gathering we had back then on Sunday night. That sort of communion is sorely missing today as we all busy ourselves with unimportant *have to stuff*. But secondly, and in my opinon very interestingly, they watch it because they are being touched by the current war and it's ramifications. Their friends are being seduced by bonuses and paid for college into the military. They're struggling to understand why we're doing what we're doing in Iraq, politically in general and it's really fabulous watching their little minds unfold into personally perceptive thought.

Besides, American Dreams has the NBC peacock in it's opening...what better way to take me back to the *good old days*... ;) The music's good too!

I've rather taken this off topic so will stop the reminiscing...and don't sell your writing skills short, mine don't compare.

Malkin will hopefully fade into the sunset as many other shock and awe *journalists* have. One can hope anyway.