<p>Michelle Malkin is the author of this book:
[In</a> Defense of Internment: The Case for Racial Profiling in World War II and the War on Terror: Michelle Malkin: 9780895260512: Amazon.com: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/In-Defense-Internment-Racial-Profiling/dp/0895260514]In”>http://www.amazon.com/In-Defense-Internment-Racial-Profiling/dp/0895260514)</p>
<p>I don’t agree with Malkin on much, but I’ve gotta say, she seems to have the facts right on this one. This was the work of a couple of guys “■■■■■■■■” the campus, and there’s certainly nothing in any of the facts I’ve read to suggest that they are part of any hate group or campaign. Unless Malkin is lying, the one who seems to be the prime mover was a member of the campus Young Democrats. The Oberlin statement says that these acts were “real,” and that’s true, in a limited sense–but the implications of the acts weren’t “real.” I will note, with some pride, that it turned out to be what I surmised in the prior thread on this topic. Here’s the old thread: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1469565-racial-episodes-shake-oberlin-college.html?highlight=hoax[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1469565-racial-episodes-shake-oberlin-college.html?highlight=hoax</a></p>
<p>^^^^Hunt: I went back and read that thread. It seems you and Barrons were the ones who were right. He jumped to the “correct” conclusion and you refused to jump to conclusions and offered what ended up being the truth as a possibility. Good job.</p>
<p>Just because one doesn’t agree with Michelle Malkin’s politics doesn’t mean she’s wrong. Al Sharpton makes sense every once in a while, and he’s just as far from being a centrist as Malkin is.</p>
<p>^ the point being, just because you freaking heard it or read it, you still need to think about it.</p>
<p>"Michelle Malkin has long been known as a polemic pundit with right-wing biases and is an alum most Obies would rather forget about. "</p>
<p>If the above is true, then Obies do not value ideological diversity.</p>
<p>Both the left and the right have thoughtful, articulate, decorous proponents of their viewpoints. And both the left and the right have venomous provocateurs, whose aim seems not to be promoting the liberal or conservative position, but rather denigrating and baiting the other side.</p>
<p>Michelle Malkin is one of the latter.</p>
<p>Sadly, that seems to pay better–in both money and attention.</p>
<p>…and influence.
Strikingly done, Sikorsky.</p>
<p>Yes, alas, and influence.</p>
<p>Thanks, lookingforward.</p>
<p>Note the second chart in [Cable:</a> By the Numbers | State of the Media](<a href=“http://stateofthemedia.org/2011/cable-essay/data-page-2/]Cable:”>http://stateofthemedia.org/2011/cable-essay/data-page-2/) . The more partisan networks (Fox and MSNBC) now have larger viewership than the more centrist CNN (which is variously criticized for being both too left-wing and too right-wing).</p>
<p>Note also that CNN is also able to charge less for ads than Fox or MSNBC.</p>
<p>Venomous provacateurs say you? It was not Ms. Malkin running around campus crying “wolf.”</p>
<p>I did say, yes.</p>
<p>I said nothing to excuse the bad behavior of those kids at Oberlin. And I said previously in this thread that if they’re indeed guilty, they deserve considerable punishment.</p>
<p>It turns out, glido, that there is unfortunately no cap on incivility, and it’s possible for both those college kids and Michelle Malkin to behave very badly.</p>
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<p>Well, it is more like one venomous provocateur criticizing other venomous provocateurs.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, it seems to be much easier to provoke fear and hatred (particularly of someone of some other race or religion) than to calm people down.</p>
<p>Michelle Malkin wrote this piece against the US constitutional provision of jus soli citizenship: [Michelle</a> Malkin](<a href=“http://www.jewishworldreview.com/michelle/malkin070403.asp]Michelle”>Michelle Malkin)</p>
<p>However, wasn’t she herself born in the US from non-US-citizen parents?</p>
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<p>Whether you judge a public figure to be a “venomous provocateur” will depend in part on whether you agree with the person’s views.</p>
<p>I hadn’t followed this closely. The idea that this was a “joke” is obviously ridiculous when you learn who the prepetrators were. {sic}</p>
<p>This was an attempt to stoke up fervor about discrimination and evil that is not extant…so it needs to be manufactured to keep the fires burning. I thought the jokesters had been misguided “redneck” admittees. Silly me. My first reaction was right. This is Tawana Brawley all over again. Its like the editing of the Zimmerman police call.</p>
<p>They weren’t provocateurs. They weren’t attempting to show the university over-reacts.
They were looking for converts and zealots for their cause.</p>
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I think this idea–like the idea that there was a racist conspiracy–gives them too much credit. It’s my opinion that many jerky acts are simply the results of jerky people, and ideology is secondary.</p>
<p>You may be right, Hunt, but I think there may be some truth in what dadx is saying. As an aside, our family just happened to be on the Oberlin campus on Friday for an info session and tour. This issue never came up. My D really liked the place.</p>
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<p>Well, there’s truth in that. But it doesn’t change the fact that there are such provocateurs on both ends of the political spectrum. I can name several, both on your end of that spectrum and on mine.</p>
<p>I have a sneaking suspicion, Beliavsky, that you might want to bicker over whether Michelle Malkin crosses that line, whether she qualifies as both venomous and a provocateur. I don’t. I’m quite sure she qualifies on both counts. If you disagree, OK, but I don’t care to argue the point with you or anyone else. If you call out just as many provocateurs on the left as I can on the right, that’s OK, too. But I do not care to play.</p>
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<p>Honestly, I am not interested enough in this to follow it closely just now. (Or then, really.) I can name a lot of ongoing news stories that seem a lot more important to me than what happened months ago at one small college. I also am skeptical of a whole lot of news reporting–not because I think the “mainstream media” are biased, but because I think it’s the nature of their work to oversimplify complicated matters so that they can fit into X column inches or Y seconds of airtime–so I’m not entirely sure I’d know the real story even if I were following it.</p>
<p>But the Tawana Brawley episode was a disgraceful stunt, propagated by someone I think is one of my side’s provocateurs. If this is Tawana Brawley all over again, the left should be madder at those kids than anybody.</p>
<p>In the case of Tawana Brawley, I have the strong impression that at first everyone believed her, including the provocateurs. They were probably well into making political hay out of it before they realized she was lying. (Of course, that may well be because they went from 0 to 60 in a nanosecond without pausing for any assessment.)</p>