Kos Diarist Calls for Prayers for Michelle Malkin’s Death
Thanks to everyone of every point of view who linked to this post. Of course, any high traffic post is a mixed blessing. You get good links and comments and widen the circulation of your ideas, and you also dredge the swamp. I’d have to say that the call by Kos diarist “Gramarye” for prayers for Michelle Malkin’s death (and after her blog linked this one) sets a new low. Seriously:
According to her blog,
“Take me now, Lord. My life as a blogger is complete.”
[….] So let’s all help Michelle’s request along and say a little prayer to the Lord. [….] But I have HOPE for Michelle’s plea. [Daily Kos]
I recall reading that Michelle has a husband and young daughter, which I suppose makes this especially classless. This would not be the first time Kos’s rhetoric was an embarrassment to itself. Yes, I kept screenshots. In fairness, many of the Kos commenters disapprove.
That sadly doesn’t make him much worse than Malkin.
Uggh. You’re not going to start steering this blog in the direction of wacko right-wing punditry, are you? Korea talk, korea talk, ‘Random leftist blogger calls for the dismantling of the entire U.S. army/the Quran to be substituted for the constitution in the name of religious tolerance/the entire Bush family line to be exterminated down to the last child/an unpopular right-wing commentator to die/something else stupid! BE OUTRAGED!’, korea talk?
The Korea talk is good, well-written and informative. The right wing punditry, completely unrelated to Korea? Not so much. Particularly given how, with the Malkinesque-type of right-wing blogger especially, it would be oh-so-very easy to find something equally as horrendous (though from a right wing perspective) that she herself posted.
I’ve been impressed by the fact that you’re willing to take both Obama and the Bush administration equally to task for their failings in regards to North Korean policy, making it seem you’re not one of the selective outrage-style bloggers whose righteous indignation tends to stem entirely from whether or not it’s THEIR party saying/doing bad things at any given time. Please don’t screw that up with this silly kind of post.
I’m calling you on that. Can you show me where Michelle Malkin wished or called for the death of someone simply because of a political or philosophical disagreement?
Specifically her wishing death on someone? I don’t know any off the top of my head, though admittedly I don’t regularly keep up with her blog. If this were Coulter, a commentator whom Malkin has expressed admiration for, I’d cite the remark about hoping the terrorists bomb the New York Times. In regards to the similiar style of political raving, mistaking heat for light, Coulter certainly fits the category of ‘Malkinesque’ mentioned (or, more fairly, Malkin is often described as a ‘Coulter wannabe’), though so far as I know she’s not a blogger.
In Malkin’s case, the ugliness I was thinking of when I made my above comments are largely confined largely to the various forms of xenophobia which permeate her blog: the unwashed hordes of undifferentiated brown…and yellow…people who want to swarm across our borders and destroy us. The inability to grasp that American Muslims are not, simply by virtue of their faith, an insidious fifth column which must be labelled and profiled and treated as the enemy. To me, such speech is far more damaging than some random nitwit on a left-wing blog wishing death on a political opponent because it’s far more likely to have an effect on people’s behavior.
If anyone actually reads Michelle’s blog (which I do everyday even if I don’t agree with her views on immigration), one will know that there is more than one blogger in the site.
The statement, “Take me now, Lord. My life as a blogger is complete.†was actually written by see-dubya, not Michelle.
Buy hey, if you view your adversaries as the malignant ideology (malkineque?) rather than a human being, then stuff like this will happen.
“Buy hey, if you view your adversaries as the malignant ideology (malkineque?) rather than a human being, then stuff like this will happen.”
Oh, I’m not saying that’s she just another head on some insidious hydra of ultra-right wing ideology, completely lacking in anything whatsover to set her apart from a Sean Hannity or a Ann Coulter. I’m just saying that, in regards to tactics, tone, shrillness and general utterly-one-sided commentary to keep those book sales high among those who live in perpetual terror of The Other, she has plenty of company among a certain group of political commentators in modern American politics, regardless of the individual message they use. Here they are being labelled ‘Malkiensque’, but ‘shrieking obnoxious political hacks’ would be just as fair.
The left has these people in abundance, too, as I’m sure you recognize, so don’t feel too bad. What they’re saying is less important than how they’re saying it.
Really, all of this right-wing-left-wing-who-wished-death-on-who banter is fun, but beside the point I was aiming for. I have not come on behalf of the ACLU and Michael Moore as a beacon of liberalism to shine the light of tolerance and make you stop picking on poor ol’ DailyKos. This is your blog. Post whatever you please. If you’re right wing, post about how the slavering hordes of Jihadis will be beating up women, hacking off hands and instituting Sharia law in Kansas within the year if we pull out of Iraq before . If you have a change of heart and go left, free feel to spend your day posting YouTube videos of American soldiers greasing the treads of their tanks with baby entrails. Christ, use the damned blog to put up adorable pictures of kittens if that’s what butters your muffin.
I’m just saying this place is at it’s most interesting when it isn’t delving into the same wacky political screeds on American politics unrelated to Korea we can get at….well, right and left-wing American political blogs. Or television. Or newspapers. Or practically anywhere else since this is an election year. Don’t take that as an attack, since I’ve been an avid reader here for some time. Just take it as a random commentator expressing an opinion, which is all it is.
Joshua, Malkin has never wished for anyone’s death, not to my knowledge, and I don’t read what she writes regularly. I’d never even heard of her until she took aim at Dunkin Donuts for being in bed with Al Qaeda. I know she has contempt for a lot of people and, most egregiously, defends the internment of Americans of Japanese origin during World War II. The person you quote is not much more classless than she is.
I don’t agree with the internment of the Japanese-Amercans, nor have I read Malkin’s book, so I can offer no specific criticism (have you?). But it’s pernicious to equate the publication of a footnoted, scholarly book containing historical and legal arguments you disagree with to addlebrained fatwa for prayers for the author’s death.
ITT, The Kos death-wish originated with a link to this post, so it concerns me. Do you propose I return to only criticizing Bush and not Obama? I think that market is already saturated, thanks. One market that’s not saturated is a focus on the issues I focus on, and there are zero lefty bloggers who have taken those issues up, which is unfortunate. I’ll continue to criticize fools and hypocrites and the left and right alike, but I suppose if you choose to read my opinions, you’ll either have to skip certain posts or live with my biases. If I can tolerate the New York Times, that shouldn’t be too much to ask.
It’s almost funny someone claiming Ms. Malkin is xenophobic… anti-Asian… or any other slanderous falsehood… In point of fact, she’s an politically-inspired entertainer just like Geraldo Rivera, Mark Levine, Al Franken, Michael Savage, and the like…
Just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t make them evil. Even Ann Coulter has moments of lucidity.
But it’s all born of Narcissistic Personality Disorder… the haters can’t help believing that anyone who disagrees with the half-baked ideas they’ve been handed by their
commissarsmentors is somehow evil……Even when the object of their spleen-venting is only advocating the USA actually enforce it’s laws evenly–regardless of gender, race, religion, national origin, etc…
I disagree with the notion OFK is becoming a right wing blog. I think Joshua would have never mentioned the classless posting about Michelle Malkin if his blog was not some how related to the attack.
Likewise I believe Joshua would link to and defend a left wing blogger if a classless attack was made against them from the right if a left wing blog actually posted something about North Korean human rights issues that they were being attacked about.
It would seem that North Korean human rights issues would be something everyone could agree on but as it is the major blogs showing the most interest in NK human rights happens to be blogs like Gateway Pundit, MM, etc.
As far Malkin’s defense of internment camps, in her book she makes note incidents of Japan-American espionage such as the Niihau incident as rationale for the internment of Japanese-Americans. I do not agree with this because as history has shown the actions of Japanese-Americans in the 442nd RCT is an example of how the vast majority of Japanese-Americans were loyal citizens of the US during World War II.
I may disagree with her but I see no need to viciously attack her or discount everything she says. Even on Huffington or Kos’ sites someone makes a good point every once in while. I just wish they would make it a point to highlight North Korean human rights issue even those that involve Obama.
I get the impression Joshua is conservative, but a conservative or a liberal does not need to toe the party line. That is independence in thought and not some parrot yapping some talking points. I like Joshua and while I disagree with him on some things, I do respect him standing his ground.
Even more amazingly, he is the type to take correction if proven wrong or he finds something that says otherwise. No, I am not kissing his ass, but that’s what I see in the guy.
There are of course several very good K-blogs out there that are witty, informative, and stimulating. Joshua’s is unique, I firmly believe, in that it shall outlive all of us mortals, including the blogger himself.
For Joshua’s inquiries strike at the greatest issues of our age relevant to Korea: the uniquely oppressive totalitarian regime of North Korea and the massive long suffering of the North Korean people; how the United States, the greatest power in the history of humankind, came to coddle, over 16 successive years, the world’s cruelest dictatorship representing a destitute nation of 23 million and accept it as a de facto nuclear power; and how a wealthy South Korea, despite near-fanatical obsession with pan-Korean ethnic nationalism, led the way in appeasement as a co-administrator of brutal and systemic tyranny.
With meticulous record-keeping, powerful provocative logic, tireless devotion, and inspirational compassion, Joshua has kept for us and for posterity an exemplary record and analyses of the most pressing Korea issues of our time. For that, he is a hero, and shall be remembered by generations of Koreans and friends of Korea, long after Kim Jong Il and his gulags are gone.
Jack says “No, I am not kissing his ass, but that’s what I see in the guy.”
Well, I do not have a problem with kissing his ass. Of course, Joshua is not alone when it comes to champions of freedom and human rights in behalf of the North Korean people. But what Joshua has done over the past few years in raising awareness through research and analysis, and compiling a record of all the major issues of our time, I must say, is a major feat. All the more impressive is Joshua as his work would surely be a major feat even for a full-time Korea specialist, which Joshua is not.
What I say here in praise of Joshua, or anyone else criticizing him, are of course all ephemeral. But what Joshua has created here at One Free Korea shall live on so long as men can breathe or eyes can see.