Michelle Malkin stalks crippled child

Dave Neiwert has the relevant links. Warning: surfing through them is sure to raise your bloodpressure.

Oh, and apparently, if you're opposed to stalking a crippled child using personal information disclosed about that child at Free Republic then you a "leftist." John Cole - the "leftist" - points out again that Michelle Malkin, like the authoritarian she is, has a double standard (and here's the link demonstrating it) when it comes to invading someone's privacy.

Michelle Malkin, incensed by the presence of the children engaging in SCHIP advocacy, has now gone the extra mile:

Update 2:50pm Eastern: I just returned from a visit to Frost’s commercial property near Patterson Park in Baltimore. It’s a modest place. Talked to one of the tenants, Mike Reilly, who is a talented welder. He said he had known the Frosts for 10 years. Business is good, he told me, though he characterized Frost as “struggling.” Reilly was an outspoken advocate for socialized health care without any means-testing whatsoever and an insistent critic of the Iraq war. Despite all that, he did agree with me that going without health insurance is often a matter of choice and a matter of priorities. Or maybe we were speaking two different languages.
I also passed by the Frosts’ rowhouse. There was an “01 – 20 -09″ bumper sticker plastered on the door and a newer model GMC Suburban parked directly in front of the house. I’ve seen guesstimates of the house’s worth in the $400,000 plus range. Those are high.

Citizen journalists, at your doorstep. Maybe she can get some of her flunkies at Hot Air to sit with binoculars and see what they have for dinner. Better not be government cheese, or the SHIT is going to hit the fan.

The Malkin wing of the current Republican party makes me fucking sick.

*** Update ***

An update from the truth detector:

A word for all the faux outraged leftists accusing conservative bloggers of waging a “smear campaign:” Asking questions and subjecting political anecdotes to scrutiny are what journalists should be doing.

When a family and Democrat political leaders drag a child down to Washington at 6 in the morning to read a script written by Senate Democrat staffers on a crusade to overturn a presidential veto, someone might have questions about the family’s claims. The newspapers don’t want to do their jobs. The vacuum is being filled.

Yes- the national void of “NOT HAVING WINGNUTS EYEBALL YOUR HOME AND DETERMINE IF YOU SHOULD RECEIVE GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE” has now been filled. Thank you for fulfilling that vital role in our national discourse.

Idiot.

You know what grates at me- didn’t she, for one minute, think- “Gee- this is kind of creepy and like that lunatic Mike Stark who stalked O”Reilly. Maybe I should call the Frosts and try to arrange an interview, rather than do drive-bys of their house using information dug up by Freepers?”

Because that is what a normal, sane person would have done. I think I answered my own question.

*** Update #2 ***

Before the site is overun with Malkinites offering pithy rejoinders such as calling us socialists and libtards, let me point out my shock is not a defense of the SCHIP program, as personally, I oppose this incremental expansion. I am tired of incremental growth of government. I feel the same way about this that I felt about the hideous Prescription Drug Plan- it is going to end up costing MUCH, MUCH more than advertised. Most of my readers and commenters would probably disagree with me, but I don’t like the program, despite its allegedly noble purpose. I would prefer a radical overhaul of the medical system rather than this incrementalism.

Regardless, this is not about the SCHIP program. This is about the base instincts of the modern right, and the attempts to intimidate and smear and label it as “investigating.” I don’t have a problem with opposing SCHIP, I don’t have a problem with opposing legislation by anecdote (which is why I, unlike Michelle, hated the Schiavo legislation). I do have a problem with publishing a desperate family’s financial information, scouring pictures of their kitchen to determine the value of their appliances, and stalking their abode. Even if they were used at a press conference by Democrats.

What Michelle has done here is creepy and weird and wrong.

Understatement, I would say. Actually, the behavior of what Neiwert calls the "assholeosphere" is ritual defamation.

Defamation is the destruction or attempted destruction of the reputation, status, character or standing in the community of a person or group of persons by unfair, wrongful, or malicious speech or publication. For the purposes of this essay, the central element is defamation in retaliation for the real or imagined attitudes, opinions or beliefs of the victim, with the intention of silencing or neutralizing his or her influence, and/or making an example of them so as to discourage similar independence and "insensitivity" or non-observance of taboos. It is different in nature and degree from simple criticism or disagreement in that it is aggressive, organized and skillfully applied, often by an organization or representative of a special interest group, and in that it consists of several characteristic elements.

This is inherently anti-democratic. The author concludes

The power of ritual defamation lies entirely in its capacity to intimidate and terrorize. It embraces some elements of primitive superstitious belief, as in a "curse" or "hex." It plays into the subconscious fear most people have of being abandoned or rejected by the tribe or by society and being cut off from social and psychological support systems.

The weakness of ritual defamation lies in its tendency toward overkill and in its obvious maliciousness. Occasionally a ritual defamation will fail because of poor planning and failure to correctly judge the vulnerability of the victim or because its viciousness inadvertently generates sympathy.

It’s important to recognize and identify the patterns of a ritual defamation. Like all propaganda and disinformation campaigns it is accomplished primarily through the manipulation of words and symbols. It is not used to persuade, but to punish. Although it may have cognitive elements, its thrust is primarily emotional. Ritual Defamation is used to hurt, to intimidate, to destroy, and to persecute, and to avoid the dialogue, debate and discussion upon which a free society depends. On those grounds it must be opposed no matter who tries to justify its use.

Update: Cole has more explaining that the family that has been the victim of this coordinated assault (Malkin calls it journalism) is in reality the picture of what Republican values are supposed to be. Yet for the grave sin of speaking in support of the S-CHIP bill they had to be smeared and villified. I expect that an exodus from the Republican Party is going to occur as people with a conscience refuse to associate themselves with the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michelle Malkin, and Ann Coulter.

I simply can not believe this is what the Republican party has become. I just can’t. It just makes me sick to think all those years of supporting this party, and this is what it has become. Even if you don’t like the S-Chip expansion, it is hard to deny what Republicans are- a bunch of bitter, nasty, petty, snarling, sneering, vicious thugs, peering through people’s windows so they can make fun of their misfortune.

I’m registering Independent tomorrow.