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File:Congressman-malkin cropped.jpg | |
Born | (1970-10-20) October 20, 1970 (age 54) Philadelphia, PA, USA |
Occupation(s) | Author, syndicated columnist, television personality and blogger |
Spouse | Jesse Malkin |
Website | Michelle Malkin, Hot Air |
Michelle Malkin (née Maglalang) (born October 20, 1970) is an American columnist, blogger, author and political commentator. She is a social and political conservative. She makes frequent guest appearances on national syndicated radio programs and on television networks such as MSNBC, Fox News Channel, and C-SPAN. As well as her written blog, she posts regular video blogs. Her syndicated column "appears in nearly 200 newspapers nationwide."
Biography
Background
Malkin was born in Philadelphia to Filipino parents, Dr. Apolo and Rafaela Maglalang, in the United States on a work visa. Her maternal grandfather fought under General Douglas MacArthur. She grew up in Absecon, New Jersey, and graduated from Oberlin College. In 1993, she married Rhodes Scholar and RAND Corporation economist Jesse Malkin, with whom she has two children.
Career
She began her career at the Los Angeles Daily News, working as a columnist from 1992 to 1994. Years later on her blog, Malkin recalled these days in her reaction to Jessica Cutler when Cutler claimed to be unable to live on a $25,000 salary in Washington, D.C.:
- "How can anybody live on $25K/year?? When I was 24 and making less than that, I did it by eating Spaghetti-O's, Ramen noodles and Swanson pot pies for dinner; driving a Toyota Tercel with no air conditioning; and sleeping on a $30 futon."
In 1996, she moved to Seattle, Washington, where she wrote columns for The Seattle Times. She became a nationally syndicated columnist in 1999. Malkin's column, syndicated by Creators Syndicate, appears in over 200 newspapers nationwide as of 2005. She is also a frequent commentator for FOX News Channel.
In June 2004 she launched a political blog which quickly became highly popular, at most times residing among the top five conservative political blogs. After initially allowing reader comments, she disabled them, attributing her decision to an intolerable level of obscene and racist comments.
Malkin's blog occasionally highlights investigative reports from other sites, most notably an investigation into financial irregularities at Air America Radio. She is frequently used as an example of the blurred line between bloggers and reporters, given such investigations and her widely distributed columns and appearances on multiple media outlets.
Her first book, Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces, was published in 2002 and was a New York Times bestseller.
In 2004, she wrote In Defense of Internment, defending Japanese American internment by the United States Government during World War II and relating this theme to the contemporary "War on Terrorism", taking some heat from Asian American civil rights organizations who had been uniformly opposed to this historical policy. The "Historians' Committee for Fairness", a group of professors, condemned the book for not having undergone peer review and containing a central thesis they argued was false. Opponents also attempted to ban the book from the Manzanar relocation center National Historic Site but failed when the management refused to "censor dissenting viewpoints".
Malkin's third book, Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild was released in October 2005.
Hot Air website
On April 24, 2006, Hot Air, a "conservative Internet broadcast network" went into operation, with Malkin as founder and CEO. Other staffers include "Allahpundit" and Bryan Preston. Malkin has a daily video "column" on Hot Air called "Vent With Michelle Malkin."
After Hot Air's first year of operation, Malkin wrote:
- hanks to all of you for making the first year of Hot Air a phenomenal success. ... One of the primary goals in starting this site was to give you content and analysis you can’t get anywhere else on a daily basis–both on the blog and in our original video features. Another chief goal: having fun.
Viewpoints
After the arrest of the spy Leandro Aragoncillo was announced, Malkin wrote, "If it means now that the White House will be applying extra scrutiny to naturalized Americans of Filipino descent working at the top levels of government and in the military, well, yes, I support that. It's obviously overdue."
Malkin has criticised the media for being preoccupied with cases in which attractive girls go missing, and referred to this phenomenon as "Missing Pretty Girl Syndrome" or "Damsel in Distress" Syndrome.
Malkin is outspoken in opposition to the granting of automatic U.S. citizenship to babies born to tourists and temporary workers. Malkin articulated her position on "anchor babies" with regards to the case of Yaser Esam Hamdi, an American citizen born to Saudi parents who were working in the United States on temporary work visas. In a 2003 Jewish World Review article she wrote, "Citizenship is too precious to squander on accidental Americans in Name Only... Hamdi was raised in the Saudi kingdom. He spoke their language, not ours. He went to their schools, not ours. He embraced their culture, their religion, and their way of life. Not ours."
Malkin has expressed support for Joshua Belile, the Marine who has been investigated for composing and performing his controversial song "Hadji Girl".
In 2004, Malkin and several other bloggers accused blogger and columnist Andrew Sullivan of making bogus fund-raising claims. Shortly thereafter, Sullivan created a parody Malkin Award for "shrill, hyperbolic, divisive and intemperate right-wing rhetoric."
When University of Kansas religion professor Paul Mirecki claimed to have been beaten up by two male attackers because of his criticism of creationism and "intelligent design", after linking to a newspaper report with a photo showing Mirecki's injuries, Malkin (along with others) raised the possibility that the claimed attack was a hoax.
On February 16, 2007, while guest-hosting on The O'Reilly Factor, Malkin said "I have to tell you, in general, I’m skeptical of anything that has Bill of Rights tacked on to it” in discussing a proposed Passenger Bill of Rights. She later explained and defended her comment by quoting from a liberal blog
Negative reactions to her viewpoints
Malkin occasionally posts hate mail she received, which often consists of racist or sexist epithets. According to Malkin, she has been "attacked as an 'Aunt Thomasina and a sellout and a race traitor' by liberals of Asian background".
In November of 2004, the Norfolk, Virginia-based Virginian-Pilot ceased running Malkin's nationally syndicated column. Fellow columnist Bronwyn Lance Chester explained, "I think habitually mistakes shrill for thought-provoking and substitutes screaming for discussion. She's an Asian Ann Coulter." Malkin responded "I'm not Asian, I'm American, for goodness' sake. I would take the comparison to Ann Coulter as somewhat of a compliment. I have a lot of respect for Ann Coulter."
Students Against War and publishing personal information
In April 2006, Students Against War, a campus group at University of California, Santa Cruz, staged a protest against the presence of military recruiters on campus, and sent out a press release containing contact details (names, phone numbers and e-mail addresses) of their three-person "ad-hoc press team" for use by reporters. Malkin included these contact details in a blog post criticising SAW and UCSC. Malkin claims the contact information was originally taken from SAW's own website, but that later SAW had removed the information and had "wiped the info from the cached version." SAW "politely asked" her to remove the contact details; Malkin refused, writing in her blog "I am leaving it up." Furthermore she wrote "As for SAW, my message is this: You are responsible for your individual actions. Other individuals are responsible for theirs. Grow up and take responsibility." Malkin noted that none of the three students contacted her with that request, and posted a screenshot from one of several Indymedia websites where the complete press release was still available. After Malkin's post, the three SAW contacts received abusive emails and phone calls, including death threats. Malkin also received hostile e-mails. Subsequently, people opposed to Malkin published her private home address, phone number, photos of her neighborhood and maps to her house on several websites. Malkin has stated that this forced her to remove one of her children from school and move her family.
Address controversy
On June 30, 2006, David Horowitz noted on his blog that the New York Times had printed photos and other details of the summer homes of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. The next day, Malkin referred to this incident and alleged that "here is a concerted, organized effort to dig up and publicize the private home information of prominent conservatives in the media and blogosphere to intimidate them." Two days later, the Center for American Progress reported that Rumsfeld's office had given permission for the Times story and that the Secret Service said there was no security threat.
YouTube videos
Malkin created a "Conservative YouTubers" group at the YouTube website in July 2006. In October 2006, she stated that "nti-jihad YouTube users have reported having their videos yanked and accounts suspended" as a result of a campaign by "members of the Religion of Perpetual Outrage". Later she noted reports that YouTube had failed to remove recruitment videos for street gangs and "jihadi propaganda".
In February 2007, Malkin accused YouTube of double standards after Nick Gisburne, a member of the "Rational Response Squad" who had posted videos critical of Christianity without any difficulty, was suspended for posting material critical of Islam.
Malik Shabazz
Filling in for Bill O'Reilly on the O'Reilly Factor during and interview with New Black Panther Party leader Malik Shabazz Zulu on April 12, 2007, Malkin got an unexpected response while discussing recent developments in the Duke Lacrosse case. Shabazz was quoted as saying
- "Will you apologize for being a political prostitute for Bill O'Reilly, a white male chauvinist racist, as a woman of color?"
Malkin responded by saying "There is only one whore on this split screen."
Jamil Hussein
Main article: Jamil Hussein controversyAlong with bloggers Curt of 'Flopping Aces' and Bob Owens of 'Confederate Yankee', Malkin questioned the reliability (and even existence) of Iraqi policeman Jamil Hussein, who has been used as a source by the Associated Press in over 60 news stories about Baghdad. In November 2006, Malkin expressed doubt about an AP report that six Sunni civilians had been burned alive as they left Friday worship services as part of an attack that destroyed several mosques.
On 1 January 2007, Eason Jordan noted that "the AP's handling of call into question credibility, integrity, and smarts."
On 4 January 2007, the Associated Press confirmed through the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior that Jamil Hussein does exist, and was in danger of being arrested for illegal contacts with the press. Two days later, Malkin wrote:
- As I noted on the 4th, the AP reported that the Ministry of Interior in Iraq has now said a Captain Jamil Hussein does work in the al Khadra police station. I regret the error. But no blogger should apologize for raising legitimate questions about AP's transparency, its reliance on local foreign stringers of dubious origins, and information that sources such as Hussein have provided the AP.
Later that month, Malkin visited Baghdad herself. She found the mosques still standing. She also noted that the AP's only corroborating witness has recanted and that no-one else has found any evidence of the claim about people being burned alive.
Since the confirmation of Hussein's existence and identity through the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, the Associated Press has not retracted their reports. No other journalists have been able to speak with Hussein, and the AP has stopped using him as a source.
Notes and references
- About Michelle Malkin, MichelleMalkin.com
- On Bataan and Balikatan, Michelle Malkin, Jewish World Review, April 6 2002
- The Skanks on Capitol Hill, MichelleMalkin.com, 26 May 2004
- List of highest-traffic blogs and traffic details for Malkin's blog at The Truth Laid Bear; Malkin's blog at Alexa
- Comments, Trolls, and the Left's Continued Whore Fixation, MichelleMalkin.com, 8 February, 2005
- Inside Air America: An Investigative Blog Report, Michellemalkin.com, 17 August 2005
- Open Letter to Michelle Malkin from the "Historians' Committee for Fairness", signed by 40 professors
- A Book-Banning Dodged--Thank You! MichelleMalkin.com, 7 May 2005; has links to Malkin's responses to criticisms of In Defense of Internment
- Conservative Internet Broadcast Network Debuts, PRWeb.com, 24 April 2006
- Hot Air turns One, Michelle Malkin, HotAir.com, 24 April 2007
- Espionage in the White House, MichelleMalkin.com, 5 October 2005
- Missing Pretty Girl Syndrome, MichelleMalkin.com, 11 June 2005
- What makes an American?, Michelle Malkin, Jewish World Review, July 4 2003
- Vent with Michelle Malkin (video), hotair.com, June 15 2006
- Sullivan's Gold-Plated Bandwidth?, MichelleMalkin.com, 26 July 2004
- The Real Dish on Andrew Sullivan, MichelleMalkin.com, 3 February 2005
- "The Daily Dish Awards", AndrewSullivan.TheAtlantic.com, 16 January 2006
- What Happened to Paul Mirecki?, MichelleMalkin.com, 10 December 2005
- Professor blasts KU, sheriff’s investigation, Laurence Journal-World, 10 December 2005
- The Mirecki Files, MichelleMalkin.com, 14 December 2005
- "Not all liberals are stupid", MichelleMalkin.com, 17 February 2007
- Minority Conservatives And The Sellout Smear, MichelleMalkin.com, 12 January 2005
- Maglalangadingdong this, MichelleMalkin.com, 3 December 2004
- Malkin: Liberal Bigotry on the Rise, NewsMax.com, 28 November 2004
- Pilot error, MichelleMalkin.com, 24 November 2004
- Michelle Malkin dropped by Virginia paper, Media Matters for America, 23 November 2004
- Malkin: Liberal Bigotry on the Rise, NewsMax.com, 28 November 2004
- Seditious Santa Cruz vs. America, MichelleMalkin.com, 12 April 2006
- More Thuggery from Santa Cruz, MichelleMalkin.com, 17 April 2006
- ^ SAW on Malkin and abusive e-mails, 14 April 2006
- Seditious Santa Cruz vs. America, MichelleMalkin.com, 12 April 2006
- The contact details were removed "as per request" after Malkin posted this
- Malkin on SAW and abusive e-mails, MichelleMalkin.com, 17 April 2006
- Cyber war over UCSC protest heats up, Santa Cruz Sentinel, 22 April 2006
- "The NY Times points cranks, radicals, al-Qaeda operatives and would be assassins to the summer homes of Cheney and Rumsfeld", David Horowitz's blog, FrontPage Magazine, 30 June 2006
- "Weekends With the President's Men", Peter T. Kilborn, Travel, New York Times, 30 June 2006
- "When the Left invades our privacy" MichelleMalkin.com, 1 July 2006
- "Exclusive: Secret Service says Times article on Cheney, Rumsfeld homes is not a security threat; Rumsfeld's office confirms giving permission for photo of his house", The Horses Mouth blog, Center for American Progress website, 3 July 2006
- "Conservative YouTubers", youtube.com
- "Banned on YouTube", MichelleMalkin.com, 4 October 2006
- "Gangs using YouTube to recruit", MichelleMalkin.com, 13 November 2006
- "Fighting jihad at YouTube", MichelleMalkin.com, 6 October 2006
- "Dhimmitude at YouTube, again", MichelleMalkin.com, 12 February 2007
- news hounds
- news busters
- "The media fog of war", MichelleMalkin.com, 27 November 2006
- ^ "The AP's Jamil Hussein Scandal Controversy Will Haunt the AP Until It Does What is Right", Eason Jordan, 1 January 2007
- "Iraq threatens arrest of police captain who spoke to media", Steven R. Hurst, Associated Press, 4 January 2007
- "Corrections", MichelleMalkin.com, 6 January 2007
- "Destroyed - Not: Lurid AP report on Iraq outrage doesn't check out", Michelle Malkin, New York Post, 21 January 2007
Books
- Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild, Regnery Publishing, 2005, ISBN 0-89526-030-1
- In Defense of Internment: The Case for "Racial Profiling" in World War II and the War On Terror, Regnery Publishing, 2004, ISBN 0-89526-051-4
- Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces, Regnery Publishing, 2002, ISBN 0-89526-075-1
External links
Malkin's sites
- Malkin's official site
- The Hot Air site
- Archive of Malkin's columns at Townhall.com
- The Immigration Blog which is hosted at Malkin's official site
- Photos by Malkin and other Hot Air staff on Flickr
Anti-Malkin
- A series of blog posts by professors Eric Muller and Greg Robinson critiquing In Defense of Internment
- Is Michelle Malkin a Journalist? - a journalist, blogger and critic of Malkin says no