Saturday, July 07, 2007

Eliminationism in the Malkin-sphere

Today, one of Michelle Malkin's top pet bloggers, Patterico, posted the following:

NYT: Vermin Infested

The New York Times building is infested with maggots and other nasty vermin.

And I’m not just talking about Bill Keller and Maureen Dowd.
Speaking previously about the nature of eliminationism, Dave Neiwert wrote

Rhetorically, it takes on some distinctive shapes. It always depicts its opposition as simply beyond the pale, and in the end the embodiment of evil itself -- unfit for participation in their vision of society, and thus in need of elimination. It often depicts its designated "enemy" as vermin (especially rats and cockroaches) or diseases, and loves to incessantly suggest that its targets are themselves disease carriers. A close corollary -- but not as nakedly eliminationist -- are claims that the opponents are traitors or criminals, or gross liabilities for our national security, and thus inherently fit for elimination.

And yes, it's often voiced as crude "jokes", the humor of which, when analyzed, is inevitably predicated on a venomous hatred.
So here we've got the vermin and the joke aspect, and claims that the NYTs is comprised of treasonous criminals is standard fare for Malkin and co.

Previously, Patterico helped kicked off Malkin's Hot Air propaganda video where she and her editor fabricate a confession of treason from Bill Keller based upon this initial post from Patterico. I satirized that here, but let me be more explicit.

Patterico quotes Bill Keller as saying:

I guess I would say if you’re under the impression that the press is neutral in this war on terror, or that we’re agnostic — and you could get that impression from some of the criticism — that couldn’t be more wrong.
And then concludes that "you notice he didn’t say which side he’s on." Except if you actually look at the transcript and read the fuller quote, Keller does indeed say what side he's on.

I guess I would say if you're under the impression that the press is neutral in this war on terror, or that we're agnostic--and you could get that impression from some of the criticism--that couldn't be more wrong. We have people traveling in the frontlines with soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. We've had people who've been murdered in trying to figure out the terrorist threat. You know, we live in cities that are targets, proven targets, for the terrorists. So we--we're not neutral in this.
To anyone with basic levels of reading comprehension, Bill Keller is saying that the New York Times is heavily invested in defeating al Qaeda.

Not to be outdone, Malkin and her video editor Bryan Preston took it a step further, and actually doctored the footage to make it appear that Keller was making a continuous statement when in fact Preston had clipped out some of Keller's speech. In the comments, when someone pointed out that the video had been doctored, Preston responded:

I edited Keller’s quote, snipping out a few words that made it longer than I wanted it to be but without changing the meaning of what he said. In context, Keller says what he says in Vent, but doesn’t say which side the press is on or which side it wants to win the war. He just says that it’s not neutral. Given that he doesn’t say which side the press is on, it’s up to us to figure it out, and the best way to do that is to examine the actions the press has taken since the war began.

Remember the “brutal Afghan winter?” Remember talk of a quagmire just a week into the Afghan campaign? Remember Eason Jordan admitting that CNN covered up for Saddam? And remember that same Eason Jordan accusing US troops of targeting journalists for murder? The press started out bad and has only gotten worse, to the point that the NYT publishes wartime secrets and its reporters tip off terrorists and its photographers shoot the war from the terrorists’ point of view.Making it clear, to me anyway, which side the non-neutral press is on.
So to be clear, Keller said that the New York Times is against al Qaeda, but Preston doesn't believe him, so he lies about Keller's statement and doctored the video to get a fabricated confession of being partisan for al Qaeda - which one commenter called "admitted treason" -which is more "real" than reality.

This is so egregious that it is beyond description. The sort of thing that someone working in a field that required professional and ethical integrity would lose their job over. Yet as we know, ethics and professionalism do not rank as critical factors to the conservative movement.

But when it comes to eliminationism, no one tops the murderous fanatacism of Misha, another resident of Michelle "conservatives zealously police their ranks for extremism" Malkin's blogroll. In this post, inspired by one of Ann Coulter's hate-monger columns, he states that socialists aka Dhimmicrats aka Democrats are a "disease" which "need[s] to be purged from the body of mankind" by exterminating every "socialist" on the planet. Right, so can we assume that Malkin considers genocide, when advocated against Democrats, to NOT be unhinged?

So advocating genocide against political opponents isn't enough to get one removed from Malkin's blogroll. What about trying to get someone killed? Surely Malkin, the oh-so holy defender of civil discourse, would not indirectly condone or promote such violence by keeping such a blog in the blogroll, correct? Nope.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Fantastic post HG! In some cases, Pat's humor needs an upgrade for sure. His NYT comment was just vile.