Unhinged by Michelle Malkin
Review by Molly Stark
townhall.com
Nov 17, 2005
The best parts of murder mystery crime thrillers like Matlock, Murder She Wrote and Perry Mason are always the climactic turning points where the lying, cheating, son-of-a-gun culprit is finally unmasked on the witness stand – done in by his or her own ridiculously false words and statements.
In always steps the brilliant investigative lawyer, armed with mounds of damning evidence, to expose the unhinged basket cases for what they really are.
In Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild, Michelle Malkin plays the part of the crafty investigator with meticulously documented evidence in tow. And liberals, well, they walk away from this book with the Emmy for their on-pitch performance as the unhinged crazy culprits they really are.
According to Malkin, the liberal battle plan is as follows: destroy marriage; kill the unborn; tax Americans out the wazoo; punch some more holes in our already porous borders; and appease terrorists by any means possible. That’s all in a day’s work for the Left.
Malkin presents her rock-solid case by letting those mean little unhinged liberal ninnies do all the work themselves. Their own slanderous statements are so incriminating that Malkin simply tosses evidentiary bombs and gets the heck out of the way.
Bomb one: “The American left is unwell.” Bomb two: “How is it that you can take a seemingly normal person, add a dash of left wing sanctimony, and voila, create an instant lunatic?”
Then the disclaimer: “This book is not about liberals being liberal. It’s about liberals who’ve lost their grip on sanity and reality.” In other words, the “muttering class,” as Malkin dubs them.
And mutter they do. It’s the evidence, stupid.
By far, the most impressive part of Unhinged is the heavy documentation Malkin provides for every single point she makes – thirty-eight pages of notes, to be exact. It’s impossible to walk through even one paragraph without stubbing your toe on a footnote. Even the quotations on the back of the dust cover reference back to the notes section.
Q: Now, wait just a minute. Before we get too far here, isn’t Malkin being just a little harsh in her characterization of the Left? Footnotes and all? Just who exactly is crazy?
A: All of them! Every blasted one!
The ones teaching your children.
Evidence: Malkin tells the story of a Northeastern University economics professor, M. Shahid Alam, “who called the mass murder of 3,000 people on American soil ‘the shot heard round the world’ and exulted: ‘On September 11, 2001, nineteen Arab hijackers too demonstrated their willingness to die – and to kill – for their dream. They died so that their people might live, free and in dignity.’ Alam’s terrorist-sympathizing rants earned him the National Lawyers Guild’s Free Speech Award.”
They need help.
The ones you pay for entertainment.
Evidence: Here’s a lyrical sample from the Dead Prez rappers.
<<<
“Know your enemy, know yourself, that’s the politic. George Bush is way worse than Bin Laden is. Know your enemy, know yourself, that’s the politic. FBI, CIA, the real terrorists.”
>>>
They need meds.
The ones pandering for your vote.
Evidence: During the 2004 campaign there were rumors swirling about college campuses that Republicans wanted to reinstate the draft and ship all the boys and girls off to war.
“Democrats Max Cleland (Georgia), Tim Ryan (Ohio), and Howard Dean (Neptune) exacerbated fears. And on the campaign trial, John Kerry intoned: ‘With George Bush, the plan for Iraq is more of the same and the great potential of a draft,’” Malkin writes.
But Malkin points out that there is a problem with this hyped up little claim: it isn’t true. In fact, the chief sponsor of the House bill to resurrect the draft, Charles Rangel, and all 14 co-sponsors are to this very day – surprise – registered Democrats. As is the only sponsor of the Senate version. And don’t forget that both the White House and the Pentagon wanted to deep-six the bills in the first place.
They need therapy.
And lastly, the ones who live next door to you.
Evidence: Everyone loves a good ol' patriotic Fourth of July parade and the men in uniform that go along with it. Except unhinged liberals.
Twenty-three year-old Jason Gilson is an Iraqi war veteran living near Seattle. He’s a medaled Marine that was injured on his tour of duty. Gilson, with his entire family and a pro-Bush sign in tow, attended his community’s Independence Day parade. One would think Gilson’s neighbors would have honored and respected his obvious physical sacrifice.
Instead, the crowd booed and screamed things like “Baby killer!” and “Murderer!”
Malkin notes, “Parade-goers also called Gibson a ‘liar’ and made obscene gestures at the wounded Marine.”
From the Marine’s mother: “Even one of the announcer[s] in the parade mockingly singled out my son and said in a sarcastic voice over the loud speaker, ‘And what exactly are you a veteran of?’”
They need a twelve-step program.
Idiotic insults backed up by crazy conspiracies are nothing new from the Left. “What is new is how readily these crazy ideas are now accepted by the highest echelons of the Democratic Party and liberal establishment,” says Malkin.
The diagnosis and treatment for these unlucky unhinged patients? Should we just order up a bunch of good old-fashioned straightjackets?
Malkin advises a far gentler treatment for modern liberals: Open your eyes: “[T]he road to recovery will take more than combed hair and clean underwear.” The Left cannot start the “healing” it so badly needs until they shut off the voices in their heads and stop “blaming everyone else for [their own] self-inflicted wounds.”
The prosecution rests its case.
Molly Stark is the Program Coordinator for the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
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