I Stand with Michelle . . . Where do You Stand?
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Let me take a momentary breather from covering the politics of democracy to express solidarity with my fellow Pajamas Media blogger Michelle Malkin (pictured). I'm not speaking for Publius Pundit now, just expressing my personal opinion. I haven't asked my colleagues what they think, and I'm sure if they've got an opinion, they'll state it.
You see, a certain frenzied left-wing blogger named Ezra Klein (his website seeks to make money with a prominent ad trashing Ann Coulter, pandering for cash among the nutroots in the most shameless way imaginable; another ad implies George Bush hates children) published a post in which he challenged Michelle to a debate over health care and suggested that "we can set up the podiums in the shrubbery outside my house, since that seems to be the sort of venue she naturally seeks out." He then said: "So c'mon Michelle: Let's debate healthcare. Prove to the world that you really want a 'good-faith argument.'" One of the early commenters stated: "Malkin is a bot, programmed to spew lies and insults. You might just as well offer to debate your toaster."
Some good faith invitation, huh? Incidentally, did you hear that they awarded Al Gore a Nobel Peace Prize? He's joined the club that also includes terrorist Yasir Arafat. I'm not sure how it's related, but I feel that it is. Gotta be. This is what today's left wing politics have come to. It's a ghastly spectacle, one can't help noticing.
Michelle responded by exposing lots more bad faith on Ezra's part, including grossly misrepresenting some of her analysis. You hardly need to be told that, it almost goes without saying. Lies and hypocrisy are the nutroots' scones and marmalade.
The point is this: Ten times more people visit Michelle's blog on an average day than visit Ezra's. Ten times more. Other bloggers have given Michelle over five times more links than they've given Ezra. Over five times more. This yields a top-100 authority rating from Technorati for Michelle whilst Ezra's authority rating is only top-2,000. She's the #32 blog in the whole world, he's #1,310. Readers have favorited his blog 8 times on Technorati, while they've favorited Michelle 438 times. Get the picture?
He's jealous. Very jealous. In his post he writes bitterly: "My sense has been that Malkin doesn't want an argument. Rather, she wants to feed her readers the steady stream of outrage that keeps her traffic numbers up." He apparently thinks his readers are too stupid to notice that his debate challenge amounts to (and was undoubtedly intended as) a publicity stunt to boost his own traffic (otherwise, he'd seek to arrange a debate between Michelle and a blogger of equal clout, or challenge a blogger equal to himself). He also thinks they're too stupid to notice his Coulter advertisement, it seems, and that his posts are full of the the same seething personalized venom he accuses Michelle of adopting.
And you know what? He just might be right.
Any time now, he's bound to start claiming that since Michelle won't debate him, this proves she's both afraid and wrong. By that "logic," (where do these leftist kooks get the idea they're smart?) if I challenge Vladimir Putin to a debate and he declines, I win the same victory.
Well, Mr. Putin, consider yourself challenged!
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