The current issue of Maclean’s features some (cheap) Photoshoppery of Dubya-as-Saddam on the cover, accompanying an article by Patrick Graham about America is now attempting to sign on former Hussein flunkies to smooth into a hopeful era of relatively stable government in Iraq. (Which is not particularly news, but we are on newsmagazine time in this instance, so.)
Unsurprisingly, Michelle Malkin doesn’t like it, and starts right out with this gem:
When your left-wing magazine is in need of some quick buzz and a cheap circulation boost, what do you do?
Oh dear.
Dear Michelle Malkin:
1.) Maclean’s is not left-wing. At most, it’s center-right. Understand that you are talking here about a magazine that runs Mark Steyn as a regular columnist, that published Barbara Amiel for far too many years and whose current most notable columnist is Paul Wells, who’s an intelligent political writer but also the author of Right Side Up: The Fall of Paul Martin and the Rise of Stephen Harper’s New Conservatism, and a regular proponent of good ol’ tax cuts. (This is not to say that Wells is a neoconservative, but he’s definitely got rightish tendencies even if he defines himself personally as an independent.) Over the last decade it has been consistently critical of the Liberal Party – who are actually political centrists, and I understand that this might be confusing, but it’s how we do things up here – and more often than not outright dismissive of the leftist NDP. Its current EIC is Ken Whyte, who is most notable for two things: an exciting design sense and a highly defined sympathy for Alberta-style conservatism. (And really, “center-right” is being generous, considering that when Ken Whyte ran the National Post, it was widely considered to be a house organ for the Reform Party, and he imported most of his Post senior staffers when he took over Maclean’s.)
2.) Maclean’s is also the best-selling political magazine in Canada. Any “circulation boost” it would get from running a picture of George Bush altered to make him look bad would be painfully minimal.
3.) This is because in Canada, George W. Bush’s approval rate hasn’t topped fifteen percent for his entire presidency, and more often than not he’s been hovering at about the five to ten percent mark. Canadians do not like the man and do not like his politics. A picture of Bush made to look like a jackass is not new or novel or even particularly interesting to us, you see. It is like, say, pineapple upside-down cake. We know it’s always there, and we can always get it if we want it, but when we see it, we don’t immediately think “yes I must have that.”
So, Michelle, you’re wrong. I know everybody will be shocked to hear that. Absolutely shocked.
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You’ve also got to remember that here in the US, politics has shifted so far to the right that what most countries would consider centrist or center-right would be considered left-wing here. What other country would paint Hillary Clinton as extreme left-wing?
That magazine cover makes me laugh. That’s the most political statement I’ve made for the past week.
Michelle Malkin talks out of her ass on a regular basis. She doesn’t have a clue 95% of the time and the other 5%, she’s just plain incoherent.
My question is how worried is Ann Coulter now that Fox Noise has a newer and younger skank to put in front of the camera? Ann Coulter, being a perverse pinocchio in that her legs get longer every time she lies, can’t hide her vericose veins forever. Every time she sees Malkin In O’Wanna-be’s chair, you know she’s gotta be quaking in her shoes.
I guess any country that has people with functional brains would consider her left wing. Shes basically a socialist. Zenrage, I dont think you have a clue 100 percent of the time. What has Ann Coulter lied about? Or is that what the moveon crowd tells you to repeat.
Clinton’s basically a socialist?
Excuse me a moment.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
When’s the last time you talked to a socialist, mike? I’m a social democrat – we tend to be pretty conservative as socialists go – and I can tell you from nearly 30 years of following politics that many of Clinton’s positions are closer to Nixon’s than JFK’s. Of course, the modern GOP would consider Nixon a threat to America’s goodness. He proposed wage and price controls, something no modern Democrat has done and which Clinton would laugh at. And he cut and ran in Vietnam, but with dignity, which is more than Ronnie Reagan showed when he cut and ran in Lebanon.
Ann Coulter makes sh*t up, pretends it’s fact, and puts in in her books and columns. She lifts quotes out of context. In “Slander,” if memory serves, she quoted a very strong statement and attributed it to the New York Times. The piece was a guest opinion essay, not written by or endorsed by the staff of the Times. She claimed Jocelyn Elders wanted to legalize drugs because Elders once said it was an idea to consider. Coulter does this kind of thing ALL the time. Right up there with Bill O when it comes to getting facts straight. And, like Bill O, she attacks the liberals for supposedly sleazy behavior – including substituting insults for rational argument – while referring to liberals – individuals and as a group – as nitwits (pinheads for Bill O), losers, ugly, stupid, liars and traitors. Do you actually listen to what Ann says, mike, or are you transfixed by her frightening countenance and anorectic body?