fly my pretties fly

I think the wider world has learned a lot about the world of blogging over the last few weeks, not just with FDL being front-and-center-and-above-the-fold in today's New York Times, but also in terms of what the people on the Right are willing to do in their attempts to kneecap liberals as we push past them and to the forefront of the New Media movement.  For you see, originally blogging was a mostly Right Wing creature.  It began as an extension of talk radio and for years the field was kind of like a wet t-shirt contest at an old folks' home.  You had to give them credit for trying, I guess, but, well, let's just say the world wasn't ready for the results.

Now, Righty bloggers are finding themselves in a bit of a pickle.  Their audience is shrinking and whatever tissue-thin veneer of credibility they may have gained since 2003 has been squandered like a pallet of shrink-wrapped cash in Iraq as they have gone chasing around and around Big Media's coverage of the Middle East in an increasingly embarrassing quest for signs of "liberal bias".  From the Lebanese Ambulance canard over at Little Green Footballs, to the flurry of rank speculation and hasty retractions concerning Iraqi police captain Jamil Hussein, all the way to Malkin's pathetic attempt at on the ground reporting in Iraq, it's been one body-blow after another to their reputation.  And now, much to their chagrin, the world is finally finding out just how demented and dangerous their readers are.

Take the death threats against Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan which we excerpted here the other night.  Let's review some highlights (Via Teh General):

Bud Phelps, another person who opposes "bigotry", as defined by right wing shill Bill Donohue.

It's just too bad your mother didn't abort you. You are nothing more than a filthy mouth slut. I bet a couple of years in Iraq being raped and beaten daily would help you appreciate America a little. Need a plane ticket ?

[...]

Romanco De Leone was also moved by Donohue's poignant claims about insulating the Catholic church from legitimate criticisms.

YOU RACIST WHORE. FAT UGLY BITCH. SUCK MY LONG COCK ASSHOLE I HOPE YOU KIDS NEVER LIVE AND YOUR PARENTS DIE A TRAGIC DEATH YOU ASSHOLE BITCH!
I HOPE YOUR WOMB IS BARREN AND YOUR CAREER PLUMMETS TO HELL YOU BITCH

Mmmmmm.  Aren't those some good christian values, y'all?

You will find, however, that these types of threats are very common to people who have been on crypto-blogger and Pox News shill Michelle Malkin's hit list.  The formidable Dave Niewert of Orcinus wonders if Malkin will cop to her fan base's hand in this in his essay "Unhinged Indeed":

Over at her site, it's not exactly crickets chirping, though it's close. Malkin has made one brief allusion to the threats in a post gloating over McEwan's departure, wherein she links to her pal Bryan Preston, who opines:

And to the extent that the two actually received threats, it's deplorable and unacceptable. Around here at Hot Air, we know that feeling all too well.

No discussion of the likelihood that these were Malkin and Hot Air readers sending these love notes. No apology for any role they might have played in this.

Niewert has done a tremendous job documenting the many instances in which Malkin has taken out a fatwah against some prominent liberal target, sometimes going so far as to publish people's home contact information (a favorite Right Wing trick), and then playing innocent when the inevitable tide of hate and horror washes into these people's lives in the form of threats of violence and murder.

There was the case of the UCSC students whose personal information Malkin published: 

There is a good reason that using the power of mass media to expose individual citizens' private lives to abuse and threats is considered unethical: It represents unchecked and abusive power. No one interested in holding the public trust should either want or seek it.

Yet this, of course, is exactly what Malkin did this week in publishing, on her blog, the home phone numbers of three students who led anti-military protests on the campus of UC-Santa Cruz.

Predictably, the students were deluged with hate mail and phone calls, including a number of death threats.

Malkin not only refused to take the numbers down — in response, she reverted to her timeworn victimization schtick, posting some of the nasty e-mails she received in return and pretending there was nothing wrong or unethical in her behavior.

There was the role that Malkin's attack dogs played in the breakdown and suicide of college administrator Denice Denton who threw herself off of a building in San Francisco while embroiled in an ethics scandal.  Malkin published her contact information just weeks before Denton's death, but of course blithely denies that the barrage of hate mail and threatening calls that followed had anything to do with Denton's decision to end her life.

And finally, there is the case of Chad Castagana, the Malkin reader who is currently cooling his heels behind bars for terroristic threats to Keith Olbermann, Nancy Pelosi, and others. 

We've been steadily adding to our gallery of domestic terrorists in recent weeks, and now we can add the perpetrator of the anthrax hoax letters that were sent to Keith Olbermann and other leading media and "liberal" figures — which, as I pointed out at the time, is definitively an act of domestic terrorism.

His name is Chad Conrad Castagana:

LOS ANGELES — A man was arrested and accused of mailing threatening letters laced with white powder to Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, David Letterman and other high-profile figures, the FBI announced Sunday.

FBI agents took Chad Conrad Castagana, 39, into custody Saturday on charges of conveying false information and sending threats via the U.S. mail, the bureau said in a statement.

… Authorities claim he mailed threatening letters to Pelosi, Letterman, New York Sen. Charles Schumer, Jon Stewart of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" and MSNBC host Keith Olbermann.

Some letters included phrases like "Death to Demagogues" and pictures of victims of the 2004 Asian tsunami, authorities said.

There were some notes to those public figures in those envelopes, weren't there?  Oh, right.

One of the Stewart letters featured a "picture of a recently deceased tsunami victim with a condition known as Priapism, an erect penis on a cadaver." Handwritten on the picture were the words, "Jon Stewart, Fuck Your Wife."

Stay Classy, Katherine Harris supporters!

Here are some of Castagana's other white-powder MASH notes:

To Olbermann: "There are too many demagogues in America. All of you are poisoning the well! Time to give your kind a taste of your own medicine."

To Redstone: "Fuck You Mr Monopolist [sic]"

To Letterman: "more then one way to frag a demagogue… your kind are the real poison [sic]"

To Pelosi: "CUNTFACE. IMPEACH THIS."

Now, is it me or do these writings bear a certain similarity of style and execution to the excerpts of Marcotte's death threats printed above?  Malkin would have you believe that it's just a coincidence that these kinds of intimidation tactics are consistently used against her ideological foes, and that her readers are just good Christian Americans like herself.  She knows what she's doing, though, and no amount of pale peach tops from Casual Corner or tiny gold crosses around her neck will mitigate her role in the spread of poisonous hate and willful disinformation in our modern media environment.  

It's time for someone to call the bitch out.  FDL friend and fellow ideological pit bull Ciiff Schecter (who will be joining us for a guest post tomorrow!) may well get that chance on Fox news coming up in March.  Cross your fingers that Schecky can land a couple of good ones before they throw him off the Fox Studios lot and edit out his best lines.  Good luck, Cliff!  Give 'em hell from us Firedogs!

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