Michelle Malkin's latest assault on reality
By Heraclitus
Seriously, what the hell? It was only a few months ago that the GOP and their various media appendages seemed so fearful, so terrible, as invincible as one of those stickers on the top of a new CD. Anyone who couldn't say the name "Gary Bauer" without at least a faint smile sat huddled in fear, not daring to hope that the Democrats might actually win the midterm election, that the tide of Republican/"conservative" dominance might actually be receding (I still can't let myself believe the latter). We were afraid of hoping at all, lest we be crushed and annihilated by yet another soul-destroying GOP victory. The cult of the crudest and most absurd masculinity (let's face it, Bush's little "Mission Accomplished" stunt made Toby Keith look like E. M. Forster), the worship of violence and the apotheosis of the mentality of the schoolyard bully -- who dared to hope they were finally being beaten back?
But now, only a few short months after the Republicans' defeat, I feel like Monty Burns exulting over a tin of cat food after his acquisition of a left-handed can-opener: "Ha! Look at you now, you, who were once so mighty!" The GOP base, today's "conservatives," seem to be getting crazier by the hour. There was, for instance, the jamboree of glories captured by Max Blumenthal at the little PNAC get-together (seriously, Grover Norquist and Bob Barr are the only two people on that film -- well, other than an unnamed Latina college Republican -- that sound even sane, much less rational or perceptive. That's right, Grover Norquist and Bob mu'a fu'in Barr.).
The list could go on, but the real point here is to call your attention to this bizarre new development in the Michelle Malkin saga (much as it pains me to link to the huffpo, do read that post. It's quite funny. And thanks to Nez for pointing me to it). Malkin has decided to found some kind of club that basically involves...well, being vigilant, or something. It involves emulating James Woods. And not letting shari'a law be imposed at your local swimming pool. Or at restaurants (?). And wearing buttons. 'Cause nothing scares a terrorist away from attacking innocents like seeing some pencil-necked limp-dick sporting a button that proclaims "I Am John Doe."
I'm serious. This isn't some kind of April Fools' Day jiggery-pokery, I swear.
(On the other hand, I suppose there is a chance that any terrorists seeing something like that might feel the irresistible urge to go up and slap the Malkinite upside the head, thereby bringing himself to the attention of someone whose thoughts have actually made contact with reality at some point in the last ten years.)
I jest, but there is, of course, a darker side to all this. It's just another round in the virulent and militantly irrational fear-mongering that has come to define the GOP and today's wild and wacky "conservatives." They preach nothing but perpetual and cancerous fear of an enemy so sinister and terrifying that he is at once both ubiquitous and invisible. I suppose we should be grateful to Malkin for focusing her paranoid fantasies on an actual enemy of the United States, rather than on the increasingly fashionable target of immigrant workers, people on whom our economy is crucially dependent but who are being targeted in a series of raids that are a disgusting and transparent piece of political theater, crudely designed to give the red state/talk radio base something to feel good about going into 2008 (though, raving twit that she is, Malkin does throw in something about opposing changes to immigration laws). People protest when bloggers and such note similarities between today's right and old-tymey fascists, but what is one supposed to think when such an august personage in yon conservative movement proposes something like this, an army of would-be vigilantes prowling the streets, airplanes and elevators of the nation, driven on by lunatic visions of Islamic terrorists, possessed of their own "Beltway lobbyists," imposing shari'a at the local swimming pool and "our national monuments"?
Of course, I suppose it's always possible that "Michelle Malkin" doesn't really exist at all, that she's just a creation of John Cleese. Wouldn't that be a hoot?
Seriously, what the hell? It was only a few months ago that the GOP and their various media appendages seemed so fearful, so terrible, as invincible as one of those stickers on the top of a new CD. Anyone who couldn't say the name "Gary Bauer" without at least a faint smile sat huddled in fear, not daring to hope that the Democrats might actually win the midterm election, that the tide of Republican/"conservative" dominance might actually be receding (I still can't let myself believe the latter). We were afraid of hoping at all, lest we be crushed and annihilated by yet another soul-destroying GOP victory. The cult of the crudest and most absurd masculinity (let's face it, Bush's little "Mission Accomplished" stunt made Toby Keith look like E. M. Forster), the worship of violence and the apotheosis of the mentality of the schoolyard bully -- who dared to hope they were finally being beaten back?
But now, only a few short months after the Republicans' defeat, I feel like Monty Burns exulting over a tin of cat food after his acquisition of a left-handed can-opener: "Ha! Look at you now, you, who were once so mighty!" The GOP base, today's "conservatives," seem to be getting crazier by the hour. There was, for instance, the jamboree of glories captured by Max Blumenthal at the little PNAC get-together (seriously, Grover Norquist and Bob Barr are the only two people on that film -- well, other than an unnamed Latina college Republican -- that sound even sane, much less rational or perceptive. That's right, Grover Norquist and Bob mu'a fu'in Barr.).
The list could go on, but the real point here is to call your attention to this bizarre new development in the Michelle Malkin saga (much as it pains me to link to the huffpo, do read that post. It's quite funny. And thanks to Nez for pointing me to it). Malkin has decided to found some kind of club that basically involves...well, being vigilant, or something. It involves emulating James Woods. And not letting shari'a law be imposed at your local swimming pool. Or at restaurants (?). And wearing buttons. 'Cause nothing scares a terrorist away from attacking innocents like seeing some pencil-necked limp-dick sporting a button that proclaims "I Am John Doe."
I'm serious. This isn't some kind of April Fools' Day jiggery-pokery, I swear.
(On the other hand, I suppose there is a chance that any terrorists seeing something like that might feel the irresistible urge to go up and slap the Malkinite upside the head, thereby bringing himself to the attention of someone whose thoughts have actually made contact with reality at some point in the last ten years.)
I jest, but there is, of course, a darker side to all this. It's just another round in the virulent and militantly irrational fear-mongering that has come to define the GOP and today's wild and wacky "conservatives." They preach nothing but perpetual and cancerous fear of an enemy so sinister and terrifying that he is at once both ubiquitous and invisible. I suppose we should be grateful to Malkin for focusing her paranoid fantasies on an actual enemy of the United States, rather than on the increasingly fashionable target of immigrant workers, people on whom our economy is crucially dependent but who are being targeted in a series of raids that are a disgusting and transparent piece of political theater, crudely designed to give the red state/talk radio base something to feel good about going into 2008 (though, raving twit that she is, Malkin does throw in something about opposing changes to immigration laws). People protest when bloggers and such note similarities between today's right and old-tymey fascists, but what is one supposed to think when such an august personage in yon conservative movement proposes something like this, an army of would-be vigilantes prowling the streets, airplanes and elevators of the nation, driven on by lunatic visions of Islamic terrorists, possessed of their own "Beltway lobbyists," imposing shari'a at the local swimming pool and "our national monuments"?
Of course, I suppose it's always possible that "Michelle Malkin" doesn't really exist at all, that she's just a creation of John Cleese. Wouldn't that be a hoot?
Labels: comedy, conservatives, terrorism
posted by . at
4:44 AM
2 Comments:
The Malkin madness got me going this week too. I had to smack her twice, once at my place and then again yesterday when the DetNews ran her column which simply reprinted her manifesto. You have to wonder why the syndicator doesn't complain that she's not even giving them original material.
As far as Barr, he seems to have lapsed into sanity. He just signed as a lobbyist for medical marijuana and will be working for the Marijuana Policy Project for which I'm willing to forgive his past transgressions.
By
Libby Spencer, at 11:59 AM
Yes, the new Barr is actually quite likeable. He's shed his partisan ugliness and is now a consistent libertarian. Which isn't to say that I approve of libertarianism. It's just that liberalism and libertarianism do occasionally overlap. And on this issue in particular I think he's right.
By
Michael J.W. Stickings, at 4:43 PM
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