The important thing to understand about Michelle Malkin is that she is not an entertainer. That alone makes her stand out in a field of shticky night club acts of the sort promulgated by Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. Those three, and their lesser imitators, make their careers out of inciting outrage. There’s something maddeningly slippery and insincere about them, because no matter how often they hammer home references to “conservative values,” it’s not hard to see that their values are secondary to narcotizing their conservative audience and putting on a show.
So while many unkind things can be said about Malkin–and believe me, I’m about to say a lot of them–grant her this: she seems utterly convinced of everything she says. And true to her word, she’ll go after anyone who deviates from her convictions with equal enthusiasm, be they Democrats or Republicans. It’s the sort of integrity that would be deeply admirable in someone whose convictions weren’t completely insane.
Malkin headlined last night’s event at Kimmel–co-sponsored by the NYU Republicans and the Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute–at least partly in an attempt to promote her most recent book, called Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies. Unsurprisingly, that meant that a lot of her speech was regarding accusations of corruption in the White House, although she did set aside ample time for her two other favorite subjects: national security, and herself.
“Herself” was actually what she opened with, following a lame climate change joke.1 It wouldn’t be fair to criticize Malkin for having a healthy ego, since you basically have to in order to making a living the way she does. But is it too much to ask that she not pepper her speech with lengthy asides about why her critics are so unfair? I don’t care if Matt Lauer and Keith Olbermann were total dicks to her, much less what debate strategies she employed on The View and how much of “a difficult forum” that program is. I care even less about her classless and unnecessary self-congratulations for going after the recently dead Tom Stewart just to, in her words, “show you that I have no statue of limitations.” In fact, I’ll profess to total numbing indifference when it comes to Malkin’s personal grudges and resentments. Maybe these stories were supposed to engender the audience’s sympathy, but instead they were just unintentionally revealing.2
Thankfully, after a “me me me”-centric opening, things got a little bit more substantive. On the subject of corruption, Malkin made way too many assertions and accusations for me to fact check all of them, but suffice to say they ranged from the evidently reasonable (concerns over one aide’s corrupt dealings with construction firms in his former capacity as Bronx Borough President) to the outright silly (standard-issue right-wing paranoia over ACORN and White House czars). But what I didn’t hear was much support for what seems to be the central thesis of her book (which I’ll confess I haven’t read): that the White House is a veritable hot spot for corruption on an unprecedented scale.
Obviously, this White House has its issues with corruption and transparency, and I don’t think they should be minimized or papered over. But Obama has been significantly better on these issues than previous administrations; twelve former lobbyists working on Pennsylvania Avenue isn’t a whole lot, especially when you consider the fact that practically anyone who’s been in politics long enough is inevitably going to build up a portfolio of at least a few conflicts of interests. I’m not happy about that, but this administration’s policies represent a step in the right direction. I’m not so sure that excoriating them for improving on the previous guys is so productive.
But at least there I can sort of see where Malkin is coming from. Sadly, as soon as we touched on national security–which she described as the single most important issue for her–the conversation took a sharp turn into insanity. Malkin railed against the Obama administration for shirking the military tribunal system to try Guantanamo detainees in civilian courts, which is sort of funny because that’s exactly what he should be doing and isn’t. Instead, he’s picking and choosing, sending terrorists to civilian courts or military commissions when he thinks he can get convictions, and holding them indefinitely when he can’t. That’s an unacceptable abuse of power, but Malkin would have him do even worse.3
Which raises an interesting question: Where the hell are Malkin’s priorities? Why is appointing an “energy czar” a horrendous abuse of power, when arbitrarily denying basic Constitutional rights to large swaths of people is not? Why was it unconscionable (as she claims it was) for President Bush to say: “I’ve abandoned free market principles to save the free market system,” when it’s apparently okay to use the exact same framing in talking about civil liberties?4 Is the sanctity of the free market really all that greater than that of our basic rights?
There is a way to reconcile the tension Malkin’s paranoia about abuse of power in domestic policy and her paranoia about what is evidently insufficient abuse of power when it comes to national security, but it ain’t pretty. In fact, it’s related to the accusations of xenophobia that so frequently get levied against the Tea Party crowd.5 Basically, both Malkin and the Tea Partiers see their inalienable rights, especially when it comes to matters of property, as being fundamentally connected to the integrity of a pure free market system. But alleged terrorists have no such inalienable rights; or at least that’s the impression I got from hearing Malkin talk about Obama “imbuing” Guantanamo detainees with rights, as if they didn’t already possess them simply be being human beings, and human beings in American custody at that.
So, Americans have rights. Detainees–who, remember, haven’t all be charged with any wrongdoing, and aren’t even all foreign nationals, but are all almost invariably guilty of embodying the swarthy, sneaky “other” that keeps good ol’-fashioned, red-blooded Americans awake at night–do not. That’s an unsettling proposition, to say the least. And, dare I say it, a bigoted one.
Most of the rest of the audience didn’t see it that way, however. Unlike at Coulternalia ’08, the admittedly smaller audience was made up mostly of avid supporters. The median age in the room was probably closer to 30 than undergrad-age, and there was a sizable middle aged contingent that managed to make me feel severely underdressed. Lots of people made jokes about dens of lions and liberal Greenwich Village and such. No one even blinked when Malkin thanked security for creating a “safe space,” which they did by imposing a check-in process that reminded me of trying to get inside the United Nations.
The message was pretty clear: although the College GOP tried to sell this as part of some grand conversation between NYU liberals and conservatives, Malkin was really just there to preach to the choir and validate their fear. Fear, specifically, of the Obama administration, of the Left,6 and of the terrorists. That’s why she got away with tossing them such shameless red meat as calling the Democratic Party the “Democrat Party”7 and referring to the proposed comprehensive health care reform as “dumbcare.” That sort of stuff isn’t clever; it’s just infantile, and beneath anyone who’s actually interested in having a good faith discussion.
Of course, the concept of a good faith discussion is completely alien to Malkin. Ezra Klein already tried to drag her into one of those, to no avail. Instead, what she’s interested in is lobbing bombs and erecting, as a defense against retaliation, an impenetrable wall of smug, self-righteous, and thoroughly undeserved victimhood.
Sadly, I’m afraid the College Republicans–who are mostly very nice in person, you have to understand–wouldn’t have invited her if they weren’t looking for the same thing. They say they want an open exchange of ideas, and I am all for that; but they have to understand that with their choice of speakers so far, all they’re getting is something more akin to an ideological handjob.
1“Thanks to all of you for combating global warming to be here tonight.”
2My two favorite examples:
(1) Malkin saying, unprompted, in answering a completely unrelated question: “I wish people on the Left would stop calling me a racist.”
(2) Malkin remarking on the box of rejection letters she holds onto from “mainstream editors,” who presumably either don’t realize what a brilliant journalist she is or do realize and just want to suppress the truth.
You get the idea.
3On a related note, Malkin also vocally defended torture, urging one skeptic in the audience to read a book by a fellow torture apologist whose arguments were discredited by one of his own sources within the CIA.
4No kidding, Malkin, after taking him to task for it earlier, used almost the exact same turn of phrase as Bush in talking about the US Constitution, with no apparent awareness of the irony.
5Which Malkin praised at length, while at the same time lambasting any liberals who accuse the movement’s organizers of running an astroturf campaign, a group which includes yours truly.
6Which I wish was anywhere near as powerful as Malkin seems to think it is.
7Here’s a little context for that.
Photo by Annie Werner for NYU Local.
Beating Dan to it: TL,DR.
Ok, now I actually did read it. There’s really no better way to say this: she is fucking insane. I’m glad you made it through alive, though.
In my opinion you make an important point about the College Republicans and the idea of a fair exchange of ideas. The CRs and the CDs do not engage in meaningful debate. As it is, there is no forum for debate between the aisle on campus.
[...] 17, 2010 by Ned Resnikoff One thing I didn’t mention in the full write-up at NYU Local–but which, I think, is still worth noting–is just how dreadfully boring this entire [...]
While the NYU College Republicans and College Democrats usually have at least one debate between the clubs per semester, this lecture was not meant to serve as a conversation of ideologies. What we meant when we said it was nice to have differing ideals was that so often the speakers we are subject to in the classroom, on the streets, in our circles of friends, and other speakers that NYU brings to campus are almost all Democrats or liberals. The club tries to bring conservative speakers to campus because that almost never happens, and we want to give those members who wish to hear a view point that they agree with, or those students who like hearing dissenting opinions a chance to hear from a conservative pundit.
While you may think she was boring due to her lack of being a personality, like the author of this article pointed out, that is because she is true to her work and her job, and doesnt sugar coat it or rile the crowd up for the sake of getting ratings. I think especially in today’s media scene where the most known conservative pundits are often those who are the most outrageous and extreme, it is very nice to hear someone who is a political celebrity due to her knowledge and not her hate mail.
I just wonder why the College Republicans don’t bring in some more engaging thinkers. Michelle Malkin? Ann Coulter? These people are just fluff. Is it really hard to get policy makers, think tankers, conservative professors, etc.?
I would be far more like to check out one of these events if you had someone from the Heritage Foundation in to talk.
Charlie is absolutely right. What about George Will, David Brooks, Reihan Salam, or Ross Douthat? All are more engaging thinkers who would be far more persuasive to liberals at NYU.
@Annie: I’m pretty sure most people here are very much in favor of ideological diversity, but the objection I raise isn’t that the Republicans invited a conservative; it’s that they invited a conservative with no actual ideas to offer.
Ned, that’s arguable. I think Michelle has a great point of view to offer in that she calls out corruption in both the Democratic and Republican parties. Many Republicans fail to call out their own party members when their ethics are in question, which is a double standard that Michelle does not adhere to. We actually have invited many intellectual speakers to our meetings, such as Nicole Gelinas of the Manhattan Institute, Ed Cox, Harry Stein, Herb London, Mitchell Moss, Margaret Hoover, Dick Morris, etc. They come to our regular Thursday night meetings because most people who don’t follow conservative politics don’t recognize their names and thus would not come out to fill an auditorium.
If anyone is interested in hearing these conservative intellectuals speak, you are more than welcome to join our list serve or facebook group to be notified on a weekly basis which speakers are coming to the meeting that week. Unfortunately, the intellectuals that you speak about would not draw the type of crowd that Coulter or Malkin are capable of drawing, which is why we publicize those events more rigorously.
@Annie: “Calling out corruption” isn’t an idea or original thought. Anyone can point at conflicts of interests or pay-for-play and go “that’s bad.” The problem is when discussing actual policy–such as trying to defend the military tribunal system or defending torture–Malkin’s arguments were embarrassingly weak and shallow.
The problem is while Coulter and Malkin may draw in the crowds, those aren’t the people who I would want to be the face of my movement. And as Rob points out there are plenty of smart conservatives who, while maybe not celebrities of Ann Coulter’s caliber, could surely be part of a more productive on-campus conversation.
I was at the event, and a lot of what we heard from Michelle was more of the same partisan finger-pointing and name-calling that we hear from both parties. (And yes, I know Malkin swears up and down that she goes after both parties, but she certainly wasn’t taking any pot-shots at the Republicans last night. Example – her little jab about “the kind of decorum that some Democrats pretend to practice.”) This strikes me as incredibly counterproductive for people who actually want to fix the state of politics rather than deflect blame. Unfortunately, it’s also what Malkin’s audience wants to hear.
With that said, I appreciate that she investigates corruption, even if her findings are obviously biased (and I took all of them with a grain of salt). I think it’s valuable for the sake of a healthy democracy to have people like Malkin who keep the government on its toes. At least her success isn’t based entirely on unfounded fear-mongering (cough GlennBeck cough).
@Annie
No one is going to come to a college republicans meeting and expect to engage in a balanced discussion of ideas. If you want to spread the conservative message, which in many ways is a valid and important message, you need to engage competing ideas in a neutral setting. It doesn’t need to be students. Invite people like Malkin to debate against people with competing views. Maybe even set up a panel discussion with a few speakers from all over the political space.
“It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.”
[...] in the past year and half, the College Republicans have had events featuring Anne Coulter, Michelle Malkin, and now Huckabee. Any guesses on who’s next?(Image via) Share this: [...]
[...] Geller rose to prominence this summer for organizing the protests against the Park51/Cordoba/Ground Zero mosque/community center (just trying to keep everyone happy). She propelled the story into the mainstream news through her blog, Atlas Shrugs, which is dedicated almost exclusively to denouncing Islam. In a Cultural Wars class on Wednesday, she addressed NYU students, following in the footsteps of both Coulter and Malkin. [...]