Today’s Fake Outrage
By Via Barbara, I see that it’s not just Lieberman but ace uncoverer of Islamofascist conspiracies in the Travel section of the New York Times Tom Maguire who is trying to gin up some outrage over a blog post. About the post itself, there’s just not much to say: 1)it was clearly not intended to connote a message of racial inferiority but was trying to paint Lieberman is a panderer and phony, and 2)it was both strategically wrong and offensive in that it played with incendiary imagery in a confused and inept manner. Jane made a mistake, as we all do; she corrected it; and anybody for whom this would be a criterion for casting a vote is a Grade A moron. End of story. And the seriousness with which Maguire takes the issue can be seen in the fact that his main source on the issue wrote an exceptionally shoddy book defending a state policy of stripping people of their property and sending people to internment camps solely on the basis of their race. As Barbara points out, to cry crocodile tears about (non-existent) racism (and to engage in guilty-by-association games) when you’re touting the analysis of Michelle Malkin is simply risible.
Barbara did make a mistake, however, when she said that “I’d like to establish a “blogroll” rule. If someone on my blogroll writes something inexcusably nasty, then you can lump me together with or expect me to apologize for what that blogger wrote. Otherwise–go to hell.” Apparently, Maguire sees this as problematic because it’s too narrow–he seems to really think that bloggers were somehow obligated to comment on a ten-hits-a-day nonentity making nasty comments at the blog of another blogger with an extensive history of nasty comments. I, on the other hand, would like to establish an “assumption my readers are not morons” rule, in which I do not implicitly endorse the argument of every post made by someone on my blogroll (or who shares my general ideology or whatever), feel a particular lack of obligation to respond to flamewars that take place in comments sections I don’t read, and assume my readers can figure out for themselves that offensive comments about other people’s children are bad. I would also like to note for the record that the “in the last 10 minutes nobody on the left and/or right side of the blogosphere has commented on this incredibly important outrage du jour, and from that we can draw inferences of implicit endorsement of said outrage!” genre of post has to be about the laziest and least interesting form of blogging imaginable. “Phoning it in” would be too generous; after all, it takes some work to look up or remember the number and punch the keys…
…Pierce notes that Holy Joe probably doesn’t want to start a guilt-by-association contest.
After all, this is a person who:
— Writes for and openly promotes VDare, designated a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
— Regurgitates and promotes in the mainstream racially charged conspiracy theories concocted and promoted for years by white supremacists.
— Publishes fraudulent history as a way of justifying the mass incarceration of an entire ethnic group during wartime.
— Has a long history of using bogus arguments and conspiracy theories to gin up hatred of Muslims.
In sum, the entire arc of Malkin’s career has been predicated on one primary accomplishment: she can get away with publishing racially charged nonsense that, if written by a white person, would raise immediate questions of racism. Because Malkin is Asian American, she gets a pass. Talk about playing the race card. Malkin’s only real talent, it seems, is providing bigots with prepackaged excuses for their bigotry.
A satirical photo made in questionable taste rather pales in comparison. The waters Malkin habitates are as foul and scum-laden as any on the planet, and she obviously not only swims rather readily in them, she positively feeds on them. That, folks, is the very definition of a bottom feeder.
Indeed.