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We discussed this in the context of Tucker Carlson a few weeks back but, the more I think about it, the more I become convinced that the Amish have the right idea with this "shunning" business. It's nonviolent, even sort of civil in its own stern way, but it certainly does bring the point across. Your actions are so far beyond civilized norms that we, the decent people of the clan, will have nothing more to do with you. (And the next time you see Tomasky, ask him if I don't mean it.) I think the concept could be quite useful here in the media biz. I refer, of course, to our gal Annie's lunatic interview with the British newspaper, but most directly to the performance last night on HARDBALL of Michelle Malkin, a rising young harpy with the face of a stewardess and the analytical skills of a tack hammer, although possessed of considerably less charm. She was just inches from a clean getaway when she opined that she'd read somewhere that John Kerry's war wounds were self-inflicted. This, of course, sent Matthews into the ionosphere while Michelle popped her eyeballs. He cuffed her around pretty well and then my main dude, Olbermann, took a proper whack on his show.
Now, I think this should have been the moment. You get up there on a national television show and you say without a shred of proof that a decorated war veteran inflicted his own wounds. (By now, I'm sure she's crawfishing, saying she meant he did it to himself accidentally. Yeah, whatever. Go out and buy a new armband or something.) This doesn't make you "controversial" or "colorful." This makes you nuts. This makes you the kind of person that newspapers leave sitting in the foyer in a tinfoil hat, waiting to see an editor who's been ducking your calls for a decade, and listening to the messages from Neptune through the fillings in your teeth. This makes you the kind of person who staples manifestos to the telephone poles in Central Square. It ought to disqualify you forever from the company of serious people, and from the society of the decent ones. And even with that, hell, you can still get a job with Fox.
Indeed. Malkin has no right appear on every network and news show in the country to air her views defending the imprisonment of thousands of American citizens without charges, or to without evidence suggest that a decorated veteran deliberate wounded himself. She's free to rant and rave anywhere she wants, but editors are under no obligation to publish her and TV news producers are under no obligation to book her. Eric Muller didn't get on every goddamn show in the country when he wrote his book about internment, and I guarantee that David Neiwert won't either when his is published. And, their books aren't anti-American screeds praising the mass imprisonment of their fellow citizens.