I love this argument. It’s the “Be thankful of your Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms by not actually ever practising them” model of patriotism. How dare the American press challenge a sitting Republican president! Don’t you know it’s worse in other places? Doesn’t that make you want to shut right up?

It never ceases to amaze me just how clueless Malkin continues to be. She argues against a healthy, vigorous press – and calling the U.S. media that is questionable – by highlighting places were such a beast is caged, with what I guess is an implied threat that that’s what disloyal voices diserve. That’s supposed to be her argument. That a country that clamps down on a free press is somehow to be admired in some way, if only because those nattering naysayers are thrown in prison.

I really can’t see any other conclusion than that. She worships power, that’s all, and is willing to engage in all mannerisms of hypocracy to show that worship. Truly, a loathesome human being.

Don’t finish your dinner, there are children starving in Ethiopia.

Matt T. is on it.
Michelle, I wish you a turkey filled with a lot of L-Tryptophan. A lot.
Have a good nap, and may your dreams be filled with a Democrat majority in both houses, and progress being made home and abroad.
Happy Malksgiving.

what, is michelle actually writing something while jessie stuffs the turkey?

That seems to be the position of this administration and it’s syncophants. Talking about freedom is fine, but trying to actually invoke those freedoms is unacceptable.

Y’know, I’ve been in trouble with law enforcement off and on for almost forty years. I’m reminded of the many times they asked me for permission to search my car or domicile. I always have refused on the basis of my fourth amendment rights, and they’ve always done it anyway. The constutional guarantees are an impediment, nothing more. Something to be gotten around. And you can spot an authoritarian very easily – they will always say “if you have nothing to hide, why should you care?” Do not allow it – they are going to destroy the dream. People, the founders weren’t hippies, fer crissakes. They were on to an essential human truth. And to watch it dismantled by bush/cheney is obscene…

mikey

Don’t finish your dinner, there are children starving in Ethiopia.

That pretty much covers it, doesn’t it.

Well, she’s right – the American press should count its blessings. Because if she and people like her had their way, the press would be required to have government approval to publish anything. That she isn’t running the show is definitely something to be thankful for.

We’re not as bad as Stalin. So quit yer griping!!!!

It’s like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black.

Mikey-

I once had a Miami cop search my car. I had been pulled over for… well, I never did figure that out. Possibly for being a longhaired younger guy in an old shitty car, I dunno.

He asked permission to search the car. I asked, “what if I say no?” He got really smug and said that refusal to grant permission to search gave him probable cause to search. Classic circular argument. Then he proceeded to search, dumping everything from the glovebox onto the ground, emptying the trunk, etc, all the while saying, “Just tell me where the drugs are. I know you’ve got them.”

It was pathetic. He found nothing, of course. He never wrote me a ticket, either.

And no, this wasn’t Miami in 1968, or ’72. This was in 1991.

RobW – I feel like I have spent my life having a similar argument with the world about running away from police officers. The law in America is that running away from a cop provides that cop probably cause to stop you. But cops can’t stop you without probable cause. And if some one can’t stop you, then they can’t stop you from running from them. I often feel like either I am crazy or the whole world is, because I talk about that to totally non-conservative, reasonable people and they dont’ get it.

The deal is, there are two cases where you are legally subject to search. If they have a warrant is one. The other is called “search incident to arrest”. The courts have held that if you are placed under arrest, the arresting officers can make a “reasonable search” for weapons. And the courts have defined this very narrowly. The problem is, when you tell your lawyer, he says “got any witnesses”? and you say, well, everybody there who wasn’t me was a cop and the lawyer says fugeddaboudit, you can’t sell it to a jury without a witness, or better yet, two or more.

And you know, I have been arrested for drugs more than a few times, and every time it was after an illegal search. And every time the police report said the confiscated materials were in plain sight. And this is the freedom I want to get back. Whew….

mikey

Mikey, before they had the War on Terror, they had the War on Drugs. Both wars, near as I can tell, were really Wars on Civil Liberties.

Frankly, I respect Malkin more for being up-front in her proto-fascism, as opposed to Instapundit’s standard shtick of “nice freedom, be a shame if anything happened to it…”

I think the War on Drugs was more a… War Against Not Being Re-Elected.
I’ve always felt that the best thing we can do to hurt druglords is to have their joints suddenly being grown in the USA and worth 30 cents at CVS. Maybe that’s just me.

She sure uses “breathless” a lot.

And she concludes with:

Give thanks we live in America, land of the free, home of the brave, where the media’s elite journalists can leak top-secret information with impunity, win Pulitzer Prizes, cash in on lucrative book deals, routinely insult their readership and viewership, broadcast enemy propaganda, turn a blind eye to the victims of jihad, and cast themselves as oppressed victims on six-figure salaries.

Glass half-full a bit, Michelle? Can’t win fer losin’, can ya?

bemoaning their hemorrhaging circulations (with the exception of the New York Post)

Yes, well, the Post isn’t “bemoaning [its] circulation” because it’s got Uncle Rupert propping it up, paying handsomely for the privilege of having an editorial presence in New York. Its circulation is irrelevant.

How does she walk with her panties in such a perpetual bind?

The argument is essentially that loathsome bumper-sticker from around 1970, as I recall: “America: Love It or Leave It.” If you want to live here in the bestest country ever, just shut up and smile. If you don’t want to shut up and smile, here’s your hat.

And yes, it’s exactly the same argument as “If you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to hide.” Aside from the creepy authoritarianism, it’s just wrong on the merits: everyone has something to hide, and in 99 cases out of a hundred, what I want to hide is really nobody’s damn business.

Oh, and Kathleen: But cops can’t stop you without probable cause. And if some one can’t stop you, then they can’t stop you from running from them.

The word “can’t” as used here breaks my heart. You’re right, they can’t — as in, they don’t have any solid legal standing to do so. But they certainly can, and too often their method of stopping you is permanent.

Just as with Ann Coulter, if you read her baloney, you get what you deserve. I enjoy looking at her picture though I can’t wade through her bull. She looks like Mrs. Potato Head gone way wrong; eyes placed asymetrically. I liked her better with the beehive hairdo that smacked of the 50’s which she no doubt longs for. The do (do?) she has now looks like it has been varnished into a 1960’s yuppy sweep.

Maybe her head oughta be Photoshopped into Ace’s logo.

You should be thankful I only poked out one of your eyes. See that dude over there? I poked out both of his eyes. At least you can still see…

I’m just amazed that the irony (as thick as thanksgiving gravy) in all of this has escaped her. She really can’t be aware of it (or at least didn’t notice until it was too late), or she would have never written a column like this.

Just goes to show the complete and utter lack of critical thinking posessed by even the leading right-wing pundits.

Now, if the irony did not escape her, but she wrote that article anyway, then she’s counting on her readers not to notice. In that case I can only assume Malkin has a very low opinion of the intelligence of her readsership, perhaps bordering on contempt…which would lead me to beleive that she knows what she’s doing and is in it purely for the money/fame and couldn’t care how odious she has to be to get it.

Twisted.

Malkin is an asshole, plain and simple. She’d have been most fulfilled as part of the Nazi Party in the late 1930s, as the party began to strengthen its grip on power.

Read her stuff, and then read the stuff the Nazi Party hacks wrote at that time. You’d see the same thing, practically word-for-word.

She’s no different from Coulter, just an asshole attention-whore who’s saying whatever she things will get her the most attention. The thing that would drive her nuts is if everyone just ignored her.

Which is what I am going to do, starting right now.

That paragraph quoted by Demogenes, except (perhpas) for the phrase abput leaking secret information, is a complete self-description of Malkin.

Michelle Malkin, like so many other sad would-be journalists, hasfound a niche in the Shill Industry.

So I propose that you, me, us, dub her ‘Ma-shill Malkin’ until the name sticks to her shoe like a piece of discarded gum.

She’s a nasty cunt and I hope she gets what’s coming to her in this life so we can all witness a little justice.