February 28, 2007 6:12 AM

Things like this will happen when you have your lips surgically attached to Michelle Malkin's @$$

The Washington Post’s crush on right-wing bloggers

Under normal circumstances, the recent lunch at at a Filipino cafe in Washington, D.C., between Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz and right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin would have been an awkward affair. Kurtz was there to profile Malkin for the paper’s Style section, yet Malkin in her writings had made it clear she despises the mainstream media and holds the Post in contempt. (“Washington Post Sinks To A New Low,” read a Malkin blog entry on July 22, 2005.)…. Talk about tension. The lunch and the subsequent feature could have set off some real fireworks with Kurtz not only defending his work and the Post’s reputation, but pressing Malkin hard to explain her wild and often fact-free allegations against journalists. Instead, the profile, which skated over Malkin’s anti-media rants as well as her loathing of the Post, was published as a Valentine’s Day week mash note, presenting Malkin as a pugnacious, on-the-rise pundit who has her liberal critics up in arms.

I can imagine few things more despicable than Right-wing zealots who view themselves and portray themselves as the soul and personification of reason and moderation. In fact most Right-wing zealots, Michelle Malkin chiefly among them, are among the most intolerant, hateful, and bigoted commentators out there. While I respect her right to hold whatever views she sees fit, I do not and cannot respect her ignorant, self-satisfied zealotry. What she and those who think like her portray as correct thinking is more often than not little more than self-righteous jingoism and xenophobia.

Now the Washington Post appears to be sucking up to Right-wing bloggers like Malkin, and my first thought is that we’re about to witness the creeping death of diversity of thought in the Mainstream Media. Why? Because the Right-wing zealots who get the most attention are the ones who make the most noise, toss off the most gratuitous insults, and just generally do the most rhetorical bomb throwing. People like Michelle Malkin couldn’t carry on a reasoned, dispassionate debate on the issues if their lives and careers depended on it.

As Paul McLeary noted at CJR Daily: “It really takes a talented writer to paint conservative commentator Michelle Malkin as the voice of reason. … But the Washington Post’s Howie Kurtz … manages to do just that.”

Even Malkin’s fellow GOP bloggers were cooing over the Post’s treatment. The profile was “reasonably balanced and well worth reading,” wrote Power Line. Trust me, that’s an extraordinary compliment coming from bloggers whose hatred for journalists, and journalism, know no bounds.

The Post’s soft spot for conservative media players is well-known. Last year the paper lovingly profiled Fox News’ openly partisan anchor Brit Hume and announced, “He speaks deliberately, unhurriedly, making his points with logic rather than passion.” And in 2005 the paper equated factually challenged talker Rush Limbaugh with award-winning late-night satirist Jon Stewart.

The truth is not a fungible commodity. It’s not something you can make up as you go, or massage to fit your own highly partisan, hateful, intolerant world view. The truth simply IS. It is what it is, regardless of what you might want it to be. I do not pretend to be the fount of all truth, nor even to have access to anything resembling the truth. I am but one person in my lonely corner of da Interweb, trying to get at the truth as best I can. If I can recognize that reality, then why can’t Michelle Malkin and her ilk?

The problem with Right-wing bloggers like Malkin is that they’ve convinced themselves that, not only are the only true purveyors of the Truth, but those with the temerity to disagree are America-hating spineless weenies (hey, just call us “Liberals”; it’s shorter and easier to remember). Michelle Malkin, and those who think like her, are the biggest part of what’s wrong with this country today. Their ignorant, narrow-minded, intolerant zealotry which, if the wind is blowing in the right direction, smells a lot like McCarthyism, brooks no dissent or debate. There’s no room for compromise, diversity of thought or ideology, and there’s certainly no tolerance for anything that brings their Ultimate Wisdom into question.

And now the Washington Post is looking to co-opt them. Nice, eh? So much for impartial journalism….

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on February 28, 2007 6:12 AM.

Repeat after me: you cannot consider yourself oppressed if you're in the overwhelming majority. was the previous entry in this blog.

No, it's not news, but it sures beats having to hear about Iraq, eh? is the next entry in this blog.

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