To put it mildly, I am not a fan of Michelle Malkin. Not only do I tend to differ with her on a variety of policy issues, I find that her approach to issues if often over the top (for example, Los Rangers and the UN’s Legos).
However, such disagreement does not forestall commenting on willful misapprehension by numerous bloggers of something that Malkin said.
Here are the basics via Think Progress, which has video of Malkin guest-hosting on the O’Reilly Factor, wherein she said
“So you’re behind this Passengers’ Bill of Rights move. I have to tell you, in general, I’m skeptical of anything that has Bill of Rights tacked on to it.”
Now, on the face of it, that’s a pretty stupid thing to say, as it can be radically taken out of context, given that the U.S. Constitution has a Bill of Rigths tacked on to it.
Still, it is obvious that what Malkin is saying is that she distrusts things like “The Patients’ Bill of Rights,” or “The Victims’ Bill of Rights” or “The Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights” and so forth. Indeed, I have to agree in principle: the “tacking on” of “Bill of Rights” onto any number of issues is hackneyed, cliched and denigrates the real Bill of Rights.
Still, Malkin’s statement inspired Digby to state:
How unsurprising. Now can we stop the pretense that the rightwing of American politics is anything but a braindead, authoritarian cult?
Atrios presents the quote, out of context, as if Malkin was talking about the Constitution.
I suppose that none of this is a big surprise. Still, I would like to think that a more productive dialog could be entered into, and that there really is no cause to deliberately misinterpret someone’s statements. It is quite clear that Malkin was talking about the propensity to make everything a “bill of rights” rather than a rejection of the first ten amendments to the US Constitution.
Also, it is disappointing, although unsurprising, to also note that commenters at both Hullabaloo (Digby’s site) and Think Progress were rife with ad hominem attacks on Malkin, many of which were sexists and racist (such as the whole “ping pong balls” bit that seems to always emerge in diatribes against Malkin, and comments about the shape of her eyes). To be fair, the commenters at Atrios’ site did seem to avoid those refs, although I must confess to have failed to read all 200+ comments.
Malkin’s own post on the issue is here.
The liberal blog Shiny Ideas notes the ridiculous nature of taking the quote out of context as well. You can also see more examples of “Bills of Rights” there as well.
Update II: It appears that Crooks and Liars understood what Malkin was getting at.
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February 18th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
On the principle, does this “tacking” denigrate the original US Bill of Rights? A legislative proposal that would enhance citizens’ standing before government agencies or other large concentrations of corporate power is quite literally a bill of rights. It hardly bothers me, but then again I am an advocate of a rather more expansive conception of citizen rights than what was understood 200+ years ago.
But you are right about the “tacked on” nature of the original, which was, after all, nothing but a series of riders necessary to complete the constitutional logroll.
February 18th, 2007 at 6:11 pm
I just find it it to be cheap rhetoric that is often intended to enhance the proposal by making it sound really serious, regardless of whether the idea is a good one or not. I don’t mind debating the question of expansions of rights,