Category Archives: blogging

CYA

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Or, news reporting is tricky.

One of the first and most important lessons of journalism is that hardly anything ever actually happens. It allegedly happens. Or it happens according to so-and-so. Maybe if the big event happens right in front of the reporter’s eyes it’s OK to say it happened, but to be safe the reporter should preface any observation with “this reporter observed this event,” followed by “according to so-and-so, that’s what happened.”

There are several reasons for this, but a big one is that sources often get the facts wrong themselves. Even people in a position to know stuff sometimes get the details scrambled in their own heads. If the reporter writes that thus-and-so happened and it didn’t happen, then the reporter was wrong. On the other hand, if the reporter writes that thus-and-so happened according to Whomever, and the reporter can document that Whomever really did provide that information, the mistake was Whomever’s.

It’s also standard practice to get corroboration from other sources, especially if the sources want to be off-the-record, before publishing a news story. A single source who comes forward with juicy information may be trying to manipulate some event by spreading false information. Or, the single source might just be wrong, even if he or she is in a position to know something.

Wannabe journalists who blog often skirt around these rules and proclaim something to be true and factual because his friend Joe heard it from his father-in-law. Or they’ll construct fanciful scenarios based on gossamer evidence without warning readers that the scenario is just speculation. Most professionals have had the experience of getting chewed out by an editor for screwing up, but the amateurs usually bury a mistake in a ton of verbiage and bluster and skip away. So they don’t learn from mistakes. That’s why they’re amateurs.

If you’re a regular you may have noticed that I slap generous amounts of disclaimers and caveats and “according to’s” around most of what I write here. Especially when dealing with unfolding events, a certain amount of skepticism is essential to getting at the truth

So when Jason Leopold of Truthout claimed on Saturday that Karl Rove had already been indicted, I said I was skeptical. Today some people in a position to know the facts deny there is an indictment and even that Fitzgerald met with Karl Rove’s lawyer last Friday. Jeralyn Merritt at TalkLeft has tracked down some of Jason Leopold’s sources and has confirmed that he did have sources and did not just make up the story out of thin air. However, it seems to me the sourcing was thin, even partly second-hand (the source told another reporter who passed it on to Leopold).

Thin sourcing doesn’t mean a story isn’t true. In the news biz one can’t always wait until every detail is locked down and independently verified; often, by the time you’ve accomplished that, the story is a week old and the public has lost interest. So news media often go public with sourcing that’s not as solid as they might wish. But in that case the reporter had better inject plenty of “allegedly’s” and “according to’s” and every other disclaimer in the dictionary into the published story to warn news consumers to consume with caution. And Jason Leopold didn’t do that.

I’m sorry, but this is amateur work. It may very well be that Leopold was set up, as Jeralyn suggests. But reporters get set up all the time. That’s what disclaimers are for. It may be that eventually we’ll learn Leopold’s story was correct, but that doesn’t excuse posting a story as thinly sourced as this one was without sticking some warning labels on it.

Richard Cohen’s Digital Lynch Mob

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Richard Cohen panned Colbert and got 3,499 nasty emails. In comparison, the emails he got after a column on Al Gore and global warming were much more even-tempered. His conclusion is that we lefties are brimming with foaming-at-the-mouth rage while righties are cool and rational.

This spells trouble — not for Bush or, in 2008, the next GOP presidential candidate, but for Democrats. The anger festering on the Democratic left will be taken out on the Democratic middle. (Watch out, Hillary!) I have seen this anger before — back in the Vietnam War era. That’s when the antiwar wing of the Democratic Party helped elect Richard Nixon. In this way, they managed to prolong the very war they so hated.

How soon they forget. Back in December 2004, Cohen was complaining that the righties were being mean to him.

When, for instance, I wrote a column suggesting that Bernard Kerik was a bad choice for secretary of homeland security, I got a bucket full of obscene e-mails right in my face. I was denounced over and over again as a liberal who, moreover, never would have written something similar about anyone Bill Clinton had named. This would be news to Clinton.

What struck me about the e-mails was how none of these writers paid any attention to what I had to say. Instead, they preferred to deal with a caricature — someone who belonged to a movement, a conspiracy, and was taking orders in the service of some vast, nefarious cause. E-mails are the drive-by shootings of the common man. The face of the victim is never seen.

Atrios suggests it’s time for Richard to retire. That’s a thought. Political commentary is not for the faint of heart these days.

Reaction to today’s column from leftie blogs so far has been dismissive. Digby points out that “There’s no political downside to hating Richard Cohen,” and he calls the column a waste of WaPo real estate. See also A Tiny Revolution.

It’s easy to be dismissive. One, Cohen is a wanker. He has fleeting moments of clarity — I link to him from time to time — but in the next column, or paragraph, he’ll be settled back into the foggy, clueless comfort of beltway insider conventional wisdom. He’s no Krugman. But then again, he’s no Krauthammer. He tends to bob about in the squishy center of the political spectrum, just to the left of the cognitively impenetrable David Broder.

We might, however, want to take Cohen’s charge a little more seriously. Beltway insider conventional wisdom already says that we netroots lefties are nothing but radical malcontents, and that close association with us is a political liability. Not exactly the effect we want to go for, I think. The VRWC could take charges like Cohen’s and turn them into a full-bore discrediting of us. In effect, we could be collectively swift-boated. Just as we’re trying to crash the gates, Democrats might put up bigger barricades. And a moat.

We know that rightie blogswarms can be vicious. Most of us have been targets of one from time to time. It ain’t fun, but it comes with the territory. However, I suspect — this is just a hunch — that righties are feeling less empowered than they were during the glory days of the Dan Rather smackdown, and are not swarming as strongly as they used to. But we lefties may be getting friskier.

On the other hand, the Al Gore column drew much less attention on the blogosphere than the Colbert column, which was a collossally stupid column. Among Cohen’s dumbest efforts, certainly. Technorati says the Colbert column was linked by 217 bloggers, whereas the Al Gore column had only 105 links.

I haven’t broken down these numbers by leftie v. rightie, but you can see at a glance that prominent bloggers who linked to the Al Gore column were mostly from the Left. The only prominent rightie bloggers (i.e., blogs with names I recognize) who linked to the Al Gore column were Gateway Pundit, Oxblog, Blue Crab Boulevard, and Carol Platt Liebau. No little green footballs; no nice doggie; no power tools; no instahack. The big guns of the Right, in other words, were silent.

The Colbert column, on the other hand — did I mention it was among Cohen’s dumbest efforts? — took fire from nearly all the big guns of the Left. Kos, Huffington Post, Crooks and Liars, Wonkette, AMERICAblog, Eschaton, Pharyngula, Pandagon, Steve Gilliard’s News Blog, The Poor Man, The Carpetbagger Report, Booman Tribune, Seeing the Forest, Ezra Klein — definitely the A Team. Plus Democratic Underground, Daou Report, and Alternet. And me. (Links are on the search list.)

Cohen’s comparison of reactions to the two columns, in other words, was hardly a fair trial. Let him piss off Wizbang or RedState, and then see what happens.

Still, the anger thing does worry me. I am not saying we don’t have a right to be angry. And I have argued many times that the righties have us beat in the hate and fear departments. I get angry, too. But I think it’s possible that this angry left meme, as unfair as it is, could hurt us. (Since when is swift-boating fair?) And, as I argued here, displays of anger are counterproductive to persuasion. Cohen is right about the antiwar wing of the Democratic Party helping to elect Richard Nixon. I remember it well.

So, I’m asking Mahablog readers to stop picking on Richard Cohen and to not indulge in sending hate emails to pundits or politicians who piss you off. Put your energy into something positive, like supporting Ned Lamont. Thank you.

Update: Avedon demonstrates how to challenge a bleephead like Cohen. Read and learn.

9/11 Belongs to All of Us

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Chris Bowers has had a beef with the marketers/distributors of “Flight 93.”

I am the manager of the Liberal Blog Advertising Network, which has 86 member blogs that combine for 17.78 million page views per week. It is the second largest advertising network at Blogads. From what I can tell, not a single blog in that network features the Untied 93 advertisement that apparently was purchased on all 103 members of the Conservative Blog Advertising Network. That network was 4.37 million page views per week, just under 25% of our traffic.

Why did the marketers of United Flight 93 decide to only advertise on conservative political blogs? The Liberal Blog Advertising Network is four times as large, and is even a 20-30% better deal per page view (or CPM, to use the relevant industry term). Do they think that attack is only relevant to red America? Do they think that only Republicans were attacked on 9/11? Do they think that only conservatives remember that day? Do they think that the only people who took action on United Flight 93 had voted for George Bush one year earlier?

Chris updates and says the ads will now run on liberal blogs, too.

Stone Cold Crazy Bitch

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Sorry about the language, but Debbie Schlussel is at it again —

When previews for “United 93” were shown in New York City movie houses, the crowd whined, “Too soon!”

But “United 93” is not arriving in theaters too soon. If anything, it is arriving too late.

Whined?

Debbie the Demented may have forgotten exactly what happened on 9/11, but much of the damage was done to New York. If you lived in New York City then, there’s a large possibility you were at least acquainted with someone who died in the towers. Or, like me, you were close enough to witness the whole thing.

This may be difficult for D the D to grasp, as she’s clearly a stone cold crazy bitch, but this was an incredibly intense experience. Even after all these years emotions about 9/11 are still raw in New York. More raw, I suspect, than for people who were sitting comfortably in Detroit, or wherever D the D was, watching something happen on television to a bunch of strangers.

Just last year I walked through a museum display that included a twisted piece of one of the towers, and — much to my surprise — I started to hyperventilate. I wasn’t even aware myself how raw it still was.

I used to walk through the lower levels of one of the towers as part of my daily commute. I can still close my eyes and see it as it was, every detail. All the shops, all the people.

I heard the Flight 93 film is good, and I’m fine with the fact that there’s a film, but I don’t believe I will see it in theaters. I’m afraid I won’t be able to sit through it. I’ll wait until it’s on TV — I can change the channel if I need to.

I understand the film premier was in Tribeca, which is adjacent to Wall Street. And Wall Street is … well, you know. That’s where it happened. I’d love for D the D to stand outside the movie theater in Tribeca and tell New Yorkers they’re a bunch of whiners because some weren’t ready to watch a film about 9/11. Go ahead, Debbie. I’m sure they’ll care what you think.

The rest of her post might cause you to hyperventilate. Here’s the joke —

It has been almost five years since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and most Americans have fallen back to sleep. They’ve forgotten who our enemy is: extremist Islam. They’ve forgotten why the Patriot Act was enacted. They’ve forgotten why it was necessary for the NSA to listen in on phone calls of Muslims in America to their friends overseas. They’ve forgotten why it is necessary that many Islamic charities allegedly funding hospitals and orphanages must be shut down (because as on 9/11, they fund acts and groups that continue to put people in hospitals and orphanages).

Now, here’s the punch line:

That’s why “United 93” should be required movie viewing for all Americans who love freedom. …

Stone cold crazy STUPID bitch.

Update: See Attywood.

More Drips

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Larry Johnson says that he knew Mary McCarthy (not fondly). He says that because she worked in the analysis and not the operations side of the CIA, the only way she would have known about secret prisons is if an internal investigation were underway.

Other stuff: James Wolcott warns that the Right is quickly getting crazier, a trend that will likely continue. The Poor Man presents another edition of Keyboard Kommander Komix!

Demons

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A student is arrested for threatening to kill the President. Some meathead rightie responds:

Just the sort of everyday stuff that the Left puts out. Like detailed threats to kill President Bush, Laura Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld. Oh, and a plea for anyone reading the messages to bomb the United States, rape and mutilate British and American women, and kill all Republicans.

I’ve never seen any such thing on any of the leftie blogs I read or blogroll, but never mind. People who list Michelle Malkin on their blogrolls are hardly in a position to point fingers.

I’m not going to defend the guy who was arrested without seeing what it was he wrote, because the last thing any of us needs is a presidential assassination. I want Bush to live a long and healthy life. Preferably in a maximum-security facility, but long and healthy, nonetheless.

This idiot conflates what the student’s lawyer said with what “liberals everywhere” must think. (It’s called a defense, dummy. They’re payin’ the lawyer to come up with an excuse. For all we know the lawyer is a Republican.)

And just this morning this troll complained to me that I was being too nasty to Michelle Malkin just because she’s dangerously close to inciting manslaughter — “I dont think that disliking someones politics means you have to demonise everything they say or do.” Hell, if the righties weren’t demonizing us, they wouldn’t have anything to blog about.

Who says righties aren’t as hateful as we are? They beat us in the hate department, hands down, every time they breathe.

Update: Please do not post Michelle Malkin’s home address or phone number in the comments. It will be deleted.

Update update: Another gentle soul heard from.

Is this what it means to be a liberal? Threatening violence and/or death to those who disagree with you?

    A Purdue University graduate student was arrested and charged with threatening to kill President George W. Bush, Laura Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

    Vikram Buddhi allegedly posted the detailed and threatening messages on an online message board.

What happen to tolerance, diversity, and anti-violence? And, no, I’m not using this story to generalize liberals.

Um, yes you are.

The news story doesn’t say squat about what Buddhi’s politics are; the blogger just assumes he’s a “liberal” and then proceeds to make vicious and unfounded generalizations about all “liberals.”

After Malkin’s recent “let’s send death threats to those who disagree with us” episode you’d think any rightie with a conscience (or a brain) would be a little more humble about who’s more tolerant of whom.

The blogger goes on to say he’s received threats because of his views. Hey, buddy, welcome to my world! Do you really think “your” side doesn’t send threats and obscenities to us?

Clue: They do.

Update: I did another technorati search this morning and still haven’t found any liberals rushing to the defense of Vikram Buddhi. Will Randy correct his error? Will pigs fly?

Malkin Watch

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The rightie excuse for Malkin’s publishing of names and phone numbers (see previous post for background) is that the names and phone numbers were on a press release (see Joe Gandelman, who is a nice guy, for an explanation). If they hadn’t wanted their names and phone numbers made public, why were they on a press release?

And the answer is, press releases always come with the name and contact information of someone responsible for the press release, either above or below the text of the news release. This is so journalists can call that individual for more information or to confirm the relase is legitimate. Without such contact information most news desk editors would pitch the release into the famous round file. But anyone who has worked in a newsroom for more than ten minutes understands that the contact information itself is not “released” unless it appears in the text of the release.

The other excuse: “Lefties do it too.” As I’ve said many times, the foundation of all rightie moral standards is Billy hit me first and variations thereof. I regret that there are some people who lack the common sense and impulse control to not stoop to the level of sending Malkin obscene email. However, that doesn’t excuse what Malkin did.

The outrage over Michelle Malkin’s unethical and un-American behavior is growing. From around the blogosphere:

The Peking Duck: “The Badness of Michelle Malkin”

Not that there was ever any doubt, but the fire-breathing Ms. Maglalang once again proves that she’s purely bad news, a reckless bullying demagogue who has abandoned even the pretense of human decency. And I mean it. She represents the worst of the worst of the right-wing Wurlitzer.

Roxanne: “Send her a pair of toenail clippers.” OK.

TBogg: “Mickey & Mallory Malkin Go To College”

Really now. Did anyone expect any less of Michelle and Jesse Malkin than to use her C-level fame to launch her chromosomally damaged readers after some college students at UC Santa Cruz? C’mon, it’s not like she wants to limit her career options to three minute appearances on Fox with O’Reilly (did you know Bill never wears pants when she’s on? You can look it up) and book signings at Young Fleshy Slightly Damp College Republican conventions. Not when a horse-faced Ann Coulter is pulling down $30K an appearance to blurt out post-9/11 Andrew Dice Clay-isms in a voice that is about two octaves lower than Clays. Michelle is cute (and crazy)! And perky (and crazy)! And her soul is deader than Bob Dole’s dick (…and she’s crazy!). She deserves the big bucks and if she has to write like a tweaker with a raging yeast infection to get some attention, well, deal with it. She’s not going to be ignored! No slight to America is too small for Michelle not to fake a back-arching ragegasm guaranteed to engorge her loyal one-handed readers as they alt-tab back and forth between her site and bukakebitches.com.

PZ Myers, Pharyngula: “I’ll Take Anger Over Sleaze Any Day”

I don’t quite understand this etiquette thing. So Maryscott O’Connor is angry about war and corruption and our incompetent administration, and that’s bad. Naughty leftist, she should be better mannered and respectful to our president, no matter how badly he screws up.

Meanwhile, Michelle Malkin sics her mouth-breathing minions on some college-aged peace activists, and they get swamped with death threats from right wingers. And she does it twice, even after learning what kind of sewage her pals are spewing.

Hmmm. Decisions, decisions. Angry denunciations of political actions vs. vicious but infantile threats. Unstinting demands that our leaders do right vs. outrageous extortion. Which side do I want to be on?

I’ll pick the door on the left, Bob. Without hesitation.

Phoenix Democrat at Kos: “Michelle Malkin Is a Nazi”

She posted the phone numbers and E-mail addresses of activists who belong to Students Against War (SAW) in response to their campaign to have military recruiters removed off the University of California – Santa Cruz campus. She did this with every intent to have her fans contact and bombard them with hate, intolerance to free speech and death threats.

Yet, the fascist hypocrite cries that she gets hateful E-mail sent to her. I’m willing to bet that all the “hate mail” she cuts and pastes on her stupid site was typed by none other than HER, so she could say “look at what the liberals sent me, waaaaahhhhhh …” [UPDATE: Let’s assume Malkin really did get the nasty email she posted. I don’t doubt she does get some nasty email from lefties. I know I get plenty of it from righties, although I usually don’t whine about it.]

This is the tactic that ALL conservatives employ in an attempt to stifle free speech and turn the United States of America into a fascist dictatorship. More recently, Democratic congressional candidate Nick Lampson, running for Tom DeLay’s congressional seat, had his press conference disrupted by DeLay’s goon squad. There was pushing and shoving, a member of Lampson’s campaign was physically assaulted by a DeLay supporter and the police just stood there and made no arrests.

Chris Bowers, MyDD: “A Modest Proposal: The ‘No Death Threat’ Litmus Test For Bloggers.” Tongue in cheek, this:

Since I know that the WaPo is hot in search of a new conservative blogger in order to balance out original commentary and / or reporting with plagiarism, I would like to propose a simple “no death threat” litmus test for them as they conduct their search. For starters, don’t hire any blogger who posts private phone numbers of college students. Perhaps more importantly, don’t hire any blogger whose readers call said phone numbers and issue death threats to said college students. I would take this a step further, and suggest that the Post doesn’t hire anyone who blogrolls the death threat issuing blog, but that would exclude around 90% of the conservative blogosphere from consideration. Malkin, is the second most blogrolled conservative blog in the country, with 4,947 conservative blogs giving her a permanent link.

I, for one, can proudly say that the MyDD community has never posted private phone numbers and then had our readers call those numbers and issue death threats via said phone numbers. I plan to continue our no death threat policy, even though I realize that we now live in an era when issuing death threats to legal protesters has become commonplace. I know that there is debate about this in some circles, but I believe that issuing death threats to private citizens is, generally speaking, opposed to the principles of democratic discourse. I know that some say death threats help create balance in our contemporary political discourse, in order to counter those commentators who do not issue death threats. After all, how else can we make certain that those people who issue death threats are properly represented in our non-death threat issuing liberal media?

Peeking Under the Rock: “Michelle Malkin v. the Central Coast” (blogging from Santa Cruz):

She’s not the first person to disparage us: Ronald Reagan called my alma mater a “cross between a hippie craash pad and a whorehouse,” while I was there (or maybe the year before I got there,I forget). And don’t forget, the Homeland Security folks, whoi can’t be bothered to investigate or prosecute the right-wing militia types who actually murder people, have called these kids a “credible threat.”

Brad R., Sadly, No: “Michelle Malkin Does Not Live by the Same Code of Ethics as Normal Human Beings”

Yep, Another Goddamned Blog:

Apparently, Malkin herself is becoming even more unhinged as last night wore on. Now she’s posting her hate mail in an update of her own, resorting to the usual name-calling, blah blah blah and posting the very few comments from Kos that don’t outright condemn her.

Feel the love, Little Lulu. You earned it.

Updates —

Upper Left:

My beliefs about the assault on free speech by the UC Santa Cruz Students Against War are a matter of record. Even if you thought my crack about brown shirts and peace symbols was over the line perhaps you’ll share my observation that Ms. Malkin and her minions have added the colorful arm band and lightning bolt collar tabs to the ensemble.

Malkin’s inciting to a virtual riot, and the risk of the entire episode resulting in potentially tragic consequences in meat world is very real. Ezra is too kind, extending pity to a pundit whose only effective rhetorical tool is hatred. No, her act was informed, deliberate and viscious. As misbegotten as their behavior may have been, I don’t doubt that the students were acting from a misguided idealism. They thought suppression of speech was a reasonable trade off against stopping the war. They were wrong.

Malkin has no such idealism to claim. Her motive is calculated malice.

Carla, Preemptive Karma:

Malkin’s inability to muster up even basic scruples here is astounding–especially for a woman of her age. Anyone with even a rudimentary set of life experiences and maturity would know better than to put other people’s lives in danger this way.

Those who are threatening these students may be little more than keyboard cowards, hiding behind their pixels in an effort to compensate for a case of shriveled dick syndrome. But it only takes one whacko to do serious damage.

Steve Gilliard:

You would think Malkin wouldn’t have to stoop to encouraging the stalking of college kids to make her point.

Here’s a woman with a marriage, a child and a good job. Why would she think this was OK? I don’t know anyone who would post her personal information online. It just isn’t done. Does she think she wouldn’t bear any legal responsiblity if someone is harmed. Even if a case is tossed, that’s one ruined reputation and a large legal bill, at a minimum.

Another update: Ms. Shakes —

The heir-apparent to the heinous little niche of unhinged hatemongering which Ann Coulter has carved out for herself, Michelle Malkin, is really making moves to unseat the queen these days.


Georgia10 —

Malkin’s sustenance is hate–without it, she wouldn’t have anything to write about. She thrives on the misery and pain of others as she peddles in racism and inflammatory rhetoric. And her readers eat it up.

Dr. Atrios:

If Malkin had pulled down their phone numbers after being asked it wouldn’t be a big deal. They did put it on their press release. When I post press releases I usually try to remember to pull out the contact information, though I probably haven’t always remembered to do so. But if someone asked me to pull it down I would. The fact that a number has been made public somewhere on the internets does not mean that number should be posted on this blog as an encouragement for my readers to call it.

Taylor Marsh:

But phone numbers on the web reach a lot of people. It’s an invasion of personal privacy that could put people in further danger. For that act she received some pretty testy and profanity-laced emails, which she also shows on her blog.

Sticks and stones, baby, words are not going to hurt you. Yes, phone numbers can always be changed. One wonders how fast Malkin’s lawyer would whip into action if someone put her private number on the web.

What Us Angry Lefties Are Angry About

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OK, now I’m really pissed.

Michelle Malkin declared herself judge and jury, found some student protesters to be guilty of sedition, and published their names and phone numbers so that they would be harassed.

And she calls them moonbats.

The students were protesting military recruiters on campus. For the record, I disagree with the students’ position. The military services are not our enemies; they are not the ones who make decisions to wage unjust wars. Blame the bleeping idiot civilians running the military for that. As long as the recruiters are not press-ganging students into boot camp, I say leave ’em be.

But as long as the protests against the recruiters are nonviolent, they’re not anyone’s business. They are especially not that bleeping blogging Nazi’s business, if she is not a student or faculty member of the college. If the students committed acts of vandalism, as some have alleged, then charge them and let the criminal justice system take care of it. But stirring up vigilante mobs is crossing a line.

Now Crooks and Liars reports the students are getting death threats nonstop. The students asked Malkin to take their contact information off her site; she refused.

Malkin’s hate-mongering is the stuff of legend. She’s even been criticized for it by Cathy Young at the Boston Globe, who is hardly a leftie. Now Lulu has put some college students in real danger. If any of them gets so much as a scratch because of Malkin, I sincerely hope somebody prosecutes her fascist ass.

And you want to know what else I’m pissed off about? This weekend, the Right Blogosphere whooped over the WaPo “angry left” and smugly boasted of their moral superiority because they are not as “angry” as we are. Which is bullshit, as Glenn Greenwald documented — see also The Wege at Norwegianity — but never mind. People bullshit themselves about themselves all the time; we all do it. If they want to point to the anger in us and ignore the bile and hate in themselves, fine. Sticks and stones, etc.

But right this minute I’m very angry. Most of the time I’m not, but now I am. I admit it. Malkin has crossed a line. Now let’s all step back and watch the Right Blogosphere’s knee-jerk defense of Malkin. Righties don’t threaten the lives of students out of anger; it’s just concern. Hate the sin, love the sinner. If somebody gets hurt that would be so unfortunate, but you know — stuff happens. If those young people don’t want death threats they should keep their mouths shut, right?

Nazis, I say.

Ezra Klein writes,

I know I’m not supposed to, but I pity Michelle Malkin. Really, I do. Punditry is a game of incentives, encouragement, luck. You write a hundred articles before striking paydirt with one. That zeitgeisty dispatch activates an eruption of applause and adulation, so you try to repeat it. Soon enough, you’ve got a niche, a style, a persona. The lucky ones, among whom I include myself, find their path opening towards responsible, serious commentary. The sort of articles that allow us to wake up, yawn, look in the mirror, and feel good about what we see. And then there are the unlucky ones, the Michelle Malkins, who achieve acceptance through hatred and venom, and find themselves groping down the darkest path to political success. …

…Malkin has created an identity of outrage, she trades in hate because she proved unable to achieve recognition for anything more elevated.

Sorta related — see also Digby, David Neiwert and James Wolcott.

Update: Malkin is today’s Countdown Worst Person in the World.