Michelle Malkin’s Crusade Against ‘The Bitter Half’ Michelle Obama Hits Hannity
On tonight’s Hannity, host Sean Hannity took some time out from attacking President Barack Obama to give Michelle Malkin a platform for “taking to vet the First Lady of the United States,” a person who has never ran or held elected office nor has expressed any desire to. “The kid gloves they treat her with!” Malkin lamented of the First Lady’s recent interviews on television, expecting people like Jon Stewart to treat her as if she chose to run for office and govern the country.
Hannity began by laying down some ground rules. “I don’t think children should be involved, period, end of sentence.” Malkin agreed to that, at least. She then looked at the First Lady. “There are very few people in the lapdog media who want to take Michelle Obama on,” she lamented, “to talk about her disparaging remarks about America… that earned her the moniker “the bitter half.'” Malkin admits that she is the only one who calls the First Lady that, so whether it counts as a bona fide moniker is debatable. Malkin argued nonetheless that the First Lady’s “actions and behaviors” merited attack. Among the cardinal sins of Michelle Obama: discussing how Chicago public figures could benefit from the Olympics being hosted there and, of course, the 2008 classic: “for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country,” a sentence Malkin claimed showed “an antipathy to those that are not like them.”
“It’s the politics of class warfare that she has been quite the cheerleader for… for her entire public career,” Malkin argued, saying she was “as much of an ideological hard leftist as her husband. “And I think that the media, whether it’s Soledad O’Brien or Barbara Walters or people like Jon Stewart, let her get away with it.” Malkin found this particularly hypocritical given what she saw as “misogynistic rhetoric aimed not just at Mitt Romney [ed. note: Mitt?], but pretty much every conservative woman.” Her example? The Hilary Rosen fiasco, during which Malkin was among the first in line to condemn attacks on candidate spouses, and during which almost the entirety of the Democratic Party scuttled out of the cracks in the pavement to chime in with their disapproval of Rosen’s comments.
“Just for the record, she is invited on this program,” Hannity concludes after Malkin’s rant, hilariously. “I’ve had zero luck– I don’t know why!”
Most of the coverage of conservative talk this week has been about embarrassing affiliates of the American rights– or rather, of one in particular, Donald Trump. Trump is a successful businessman and comical reality TV character who has kooky and generally dismissed views about the President’s birth certificate. But say what you will about Trump (and boy is it fun to say anything about Trump) he at least has the good sense of talking about legitimate issues like our relationship with China and energy dependence and scolding those who bring up the birther topic for baiting him with distractions about our President. And even when he voluntarily brings up the long-dead birther argument, he never drags the First Lady, Sasha, or Malia into it. He just doesn’t waste his time attacking anyone but President Obama.
Malkin, on the other hand, seems to have made a tactical decision that attacking President Obama, a public official running for reelection, and his policies will have a less positive impact on the public discourse than calling the First Lady “anti-American” and making ad hominem attacks on her– the same kind of attack that Rosen made and was rightfully lambasted for. To quote Malkin herself, “there’s so much hypocrisy, that we could drown in it.”
The segment via Fox News below:
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