Schoolyard Bullies of the Right

Michelle Malkin hides behind her blog and Fox News as she hurls insults at the left and attacks the lower-middle-class families of sick children who've had the nerve to appeal to the government for help in treating their children's injuries rather than liquidate their assets and become paupers. But when a patriotic blogger challenges her to debate the subject on neutral ground, she scurries away like a cockroach down a drain when the lights are turned on. Here's a sample of one of the right's "fearless" champions justifying her cowardice and lack of spine:

I’m. Trrrrembling.

With. Laughter.

A good-faith debate would require that Respectable Liberal Blogger Ezra Klein actually be a person of good faith. He is treated as such in some elite conservative circles, where his work is linked frequently and intellectual repartee among the Beltway boys’ club is warm and chummy. He is free to continue traveling in those cozy circles where highbrow right-wingers are not so mean and scary.

But I’d just as soon share a stage, physical or virtual, with Respectable Liberal Blogger Ezra Klein as I would with Chris Matthews, Geraldo Rivera, or an overflowing vat of liquid radioactive waste.

So basically, if you disagree with her from the left you're part of the "nutroots" and if you're more principled than her from the right, then you obviously run in the sort of "elite conservative circles" that Malkin wants no part of. Apparently the term "elite conservative circles" refers to those conservatives who aren't afraid to engage their opponents in open debate, or to consider their ideas seriously, as opposed to dismissing them out of hand with an insult and a not-so-clever joke. I must say, though, that I was tickled by Malkin's rejoinder: "I'm trembling / with laughter." It reminds me of a schoolyard bully who's scared to fight the older brother of one of his perennial victims and justifies his cowardice by claiming that, of course he'd like to fight, but he's worried he'd kick his opponent's ass so badly he'd have to go to jail for it. Yeah, right Michelle, lay another one on me. At any rate, if you're curious about the reference to Chris Matthews in Malkin's piece, then youi really should take a look at the following Youtube video. It shows what happens when someone (Matthews) refuses to take any shit from a gutless conservative (Malkin) and insists that she stop hurling baseless insinuations and actually stand behind her calumny, lies and slander:

What a class act...