Between Michelle Malkin Swift Boating a traumatically injured 12-year-old boy, Rush Limbaugh denigrating anti-war veterans, and Bill O'Reilly insulting black Americans (not to mention Ann Coulter dissing Jews), the mighty right-wing media machine -- firmly attached to the hip of the Republican Party -- is in the process of driving American conservatism right off a cliff. The loudmouths whom conservatives have supported for years, and whom Republican politicians have used for political gain, have become increasingly unhinged. And their recent public antics are drawing more and more disbelieving stares.
With the Bush administration in a state of prolonged decline and with Republicans out of power on Capitol Hill, it's the right-wing media machine that maintains the highest profile among conservatives on a daily basis. And it's Malkin and Limbaugh and O'Reilly who have become the face of the Republican Party.
For liberals, that's a good thing, as the GOP is forced to deal with the sludge that keeps washing up on its shores, courtesy of its favorite media stars who now bide their time insulting black entrepreneurs, war vets, and injured children.
Make no mistake, it was that bewildering list of undeserving targets that caused so many people in recent weeks to express disgust with the conservative talkers. Their comments and attacks could not be explained away as merely Malkin, Limbaugh, and O'Reilly playing their distasteful brand of partisan hardball and taking whacks at public figures. Rather, much like the unexplainable attack Don Imus leveled at the Rutgers women's basketball team, the barbs were aimed at ordinary Americans, leading to the collective refrain of, "What is wrong with these people?"
What's wrong is their recent wild-eyed pronouncements and consuming sense of martyrdom (why should they apologize when they're the victims?) created the type of cumulative, three-week media meltdowns that we haven't seen in years. And, with specific regard to Limbaugh and O'Reilly, the fact that both men physically could not stop talking about the controversies (i.e. themselves) was a huge boost for progressives, many of whom were privately nervous the O'Reilly-goes-to-Harlem and Limbaugh-attacks-the-troops stories might fizzle after a day or two.
Instead, thanks to O'Reilly and Limbaugh's inability to look away from their own reflection or to turn down the volume of their own microphones, the stories motored on week after week, doing great damage to both men and to the conservative movement, which defends the talkers at any cost.
Then, as if on cue, Malkin unleashed her crusade to slime the family of a 12-year-old boy after he came forward to publicly support a government-funded health insurance program for children known as SCHIP. President Bush recently vetoed an attempt to expand the program. Democrats this week are trying to override that veto. The boy, Graeme Frost, survived a week-long coma after his family's SUV crashed into a tree three winters ago. Graeme's sister was even more severely injured in the crash. Today she is blind in one eye and has difficulty with memory, learning, and speech.
That's who right-wing bloggers picked as the target of their smear campaign, posting all kinds of venom and falsehoods about the family.
Honestly, the Malkin-led jihad unfolded like a parody of blood-thirsty Republican bloggers -- an Onion-worthy spoof -- the kind that even I would have been too sheepish to dream up because the premise made them seem even loonier than I thought they were. How far off the range did Malkin and company roam with their wayward attacks on the Frost family? So far that even the trigger-happy crew at Fox News refused to saddle up and join the midnight posse, out to unmask a sick kid and his needy parents. (Keep in mind that for years Malkin maintained a steady presence on Fox News, yet the channel still wouldn't touch her pet project of hate last week.)..................
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