The Racists Within

We've noted in this space in the past that the most dangerous thing to be in the whole world is a moderate Arab. It's been true for eighty years now; when the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem - a man whose anti-semitism drew him into allegiance with Adolph Hitler - began his campaign against the Jews of Palestine, the first victims were Arabs who advocated and practiced moderation toward their Jewish neighbors. These Arabs were harassed, abused, even killed in droves, even before any campaigns against the Jews started. With any extremist campaign, one must make sure one's base is solid; nothing leaches the substance from a base like examples of people who break the mold, who act outside the box the extremists want to build. Nothing angers, or endangers, a true believer like an apostate.

So too with the extreme left in America.

There are plenty of columnists and conservative pundits that draw the ire of the
American left, especially in the bumptuous world of the blogosphere. But none draw the ire of the extreme left like the pundits that should, they think, belong to them.

Ann Coulter is one. Oh, she's plenty combative, sometimes excessively so. And some of her hyperbole, as treated in the media, overshadows the fact that she's usually right. But aggressively hyperbolic conservative pundits are a dime a dozen; it's stock in trade in talk radio, the blogosphere and in the press. But to the hard left, women - especially young women who are more aggressively female than, say, Phyllis Schlafly - are supposed to be left of center; Coulter (and Laura Ingraham, and Monica Crowley) are worse than mere conservatives, they're apostates, and much more vitiperation befalls them than any comparable conservative white male pundit.

Ditto black conservatives; Larry Elder takes vastly more abuse than comparable white male conservatives.

Of course, Michelle Malkin gets the bifecta; young, Asian, female, a market that Democrats just don't want to have getting uppity. In fact, the Democrats have reason to worry; Philipino immigrants have been identified as swinging to the right, endangering Democrat hegemony in particular in Hawaii, once one of the safest blue states.

And so the left froths over Malkin as over few other columnists, attacking her in many cases with a crudity that frequently doesn't merely "border" on overt racism. The fact that she's got the guts to tackle the tough issues - her defense of the WWII internment of Japanese Americans, with which I don't entirely agree, even though the case is brought with a much firmer intellectual grounding than many equivalent cases from the left (the "Bush Lied" meme, any number of unwritten constitutional penumbras, etc) - is certainly chum in the water for, at best, a vigorous discussion, and at worst, spittle-flecked personal attacks.

Unfortunately, far too much of the left responds with the latter.

Captain Ed responds today to some of the more unseemly fixations among Malkin's detractors. And so does Malkin, responding to the attacks on her and, especially, her husband:

The racist and sexist "yellow woman doing a white man's job" knock is a tiresome old attack from impotent liberals that I've tolerated a long time. It is pathetic that I have to sit here and tell you that my ideas, my politics, and my intellectual capital are mine and mine alone in response to cowardly attacks from misogynistic moonbats with Asian whore fixations. My IQ, free will, skin color, eye shape, productivity, sincerity, and integrity are routinely ridiculed or questioned because I happen to be a minority conservative woman. As a public figure, I am willing to take these insults, but I cannot tolerate the smearing of my loved ones. Because I have always been open and proud about his support for my career, my husband has taken endless, hate-filled abuse from my critics. His Jewish heritage, his decision to be a stay-at-home dad, and even his looks, are the subject of brutal mockery.

Certain among the less-intellectually-gifted elements of the left will no doubt jump on this; I predict "meltdown" and "tantrum" will pop up a few times in the mainstream media, even though Malkin's piece is (per usual) neither.

But Michelle is right; her detractors can't meet her, day by day, in face to face argument (the odd legitimate point against internment aside); that they're reduced to the kind of garbage she writes about is emblematic.

And all too predictable.

Because the notion of intelligent black, asian, gay, female and/or hispanic conservatives taking hold has to be the left's biggest nightmare.

Posted by Mitch at November 21, 2005 07:40 AM | TrackBack