Michelle Malkin’s journey from ideas to tribes
A former Seattle Times colleague wonders what happened to the libertarian provocateur who used to engage him at their adjoining office doors.
Jumpin’ John Galt! Michelle Malkin made the New York Times Best-Seller List! Seattle’s onetime libertarian pundit, who tweaked the sensibilities of Puget Sound liberals in the late ‘90s, has made the big leagues.
In fact, she’s been there for years — as a nationally syndicated columnist and a conservative attack dog on Fox News. But now she is in my Sunday Times, having published Culture of Corruption, a 300-page broadside aimed at President Obama and his “team of tax cheats, crooks and cronies.”
It's nice to know she hasn’t forgotten us. Now and then, she snorts at Seattle’s “environmental zealots,” and her book cites two hometown heroes, Gary Locke and Ron Sims, among the president’s crooks.
I met Michelle Malkin some 13 years ago, when she moved into the office next to mine on the Seattle Times editorial board. The Times had been looking for a new voice, preferably a minority and a woman. That she turned out to be both of the above, plus a young libertarian was a bonus.
The Times could be a chilly place, so my wife and I tried to make her feel welcome. But Malkin didn’t need much help. In addition to being smart and hard-working, she was a self-starter and supremely self-confident. And her weekly columns were a welcome addition to the Times editorial page. As a student, she had read Ayn Rand, memorizing John Galt’s interminable monologue from Atlas Shrugged. Libertarians believe government should “leave us alone,” she wrote. To that end, she attacked taxes, the war on drugs, affirmative action, the state liquor monopoly, overly zealous police, and environmentalists alike — any regulation she deemed unnecessary.
I didn’t always agree, but I always enjoyed chatting at our office doors. Asked about abortion laws, she acknowledged she was conflicted. As a Catholic, she valued the life of the unborn; but no libertarian could stand for government telling women what to do with their bodies. “It’s time not for a federal ban on abortion,” she wrote, “but for a sea change in culture that exerts pressure on young people against having an abortion.”
She never asked what I thought, but now and then I told her anyhow. America is neither a conservative society, nor a liberal society, neither libertarian nor socialist. We are all of those things. We embrace libertarian ideas such as private property rights and relatively laissez faire economics, and socialist ideas like public education, national parks, and Social Security. We strive to do what works, and we hope to learn from our mistakes.
Michelle said nothing, resisting an impulse to roll her eyeballs.
Malkin spent three unhappy years at the Times. Her job included writing staff editorials, most of which she delivered holding her nose. Newspapering was a temporary detour, a means to an end. And she wanted to make more money. In 1999, she moved on, but not without parting shots at Seattle’s “constipated community leaders,” its greener-than-thou agenda and political correctness. “The physical beauty of the city belies the ugly intolerance it often shows to outsiders, naysayers and whistleblowers,” she wrote.
A decade later, she’s working even harder, pumping out two columns a week, a daily blog, all those TV comments, and now a new book.
She’s increasingly partisan and combative. In consecutive columns this fall, she attacks, in order, Obama’s cronyism, ACORN and the hypocrisy of mainstream media, ACORN again, Obama’s message to school kids, Obama’s pitch for the Olympics, Michelle Obama’s pitch for same, Obama’s health-care plan, ACORN again, Obama again, ACORN again …. Day after day, it’s the same targets, the same complaints, the same verbiage — corruption and cronyism, scandal and socialism. She snarls at Democrats, at any Republican (like New York’s Dede Scozzafava) who dares associate with them, and at rival columnists such as David Brooks, whose sin is to harbor some admiration for his president.
This is not the intellectual debate we once engaged in. It’s tribalism, my people versus your people. I’m right and anybody who disagrees is ignorant or corrupt or both.
Missing are those ideas we exchanged at our office doors. Search her website, and you find no mention of libertarian thought. She extols the virtues of right-to-lifers, routinely attacks Planned Parenthood and anybody else linked to abortion rights, but never quite gets around to telling us what she thinks should be done about abortion.
Malkin’s problem plagues pundits at both ends of the spectrum. It is not a lack of civility; it’s her utter predictability, and the lack of ideas. She has no obligation to be nice. But, if she wants to engage in a genuine national debate, she needs to revisit her roots and remind us what she is for.
Tribalism prospered long before Malkin. For most of our history, newspapers openly catered to partisan readerships. The Seattle Times marketed to Republicans, the P-I to Democrats. But as the number of papers dwindled midway through the last century, publishers saw fit to broaden their appeal by becoming less partisan.
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Comments:
Posted Fri, Nov 6, 8:30 a.m. inappropriate
Nice piece, Ross. A fast-growing Glenn Beck school of "journalism" with, regrettably, some Northwest roots.
Charley
Posted Fri, Nov 6, 8:43 a.m. inappropriate
Greatly enjoyed yr piece. I don't agree with a lot of what Michelle says, but I do like her thoughts on group-think and the lack of tolerance by lefties for alternative thought. I caught a great speech she gave to a college audience (it aired on C-SPAN) where she decried the mono-culture that effectively freezes out free speech if it's center or right. It's no doubt true that the Right can be as intolerant of those to their left, but it seems to me that one of the Left's self-descriptions is to be tolerant and unthreatened by diverse viewpoints. The R-71 campaign included some awful examples of utter incivility on both sides. It's hard to have a conversation on really difficult issues. People retreat to their certainties and then demean the other guy.
Posted Fri, Nov 6, 9:22 a.m. inappropriate
"Malkin’s problem plagues pundits at both ends of the spectrum."
Yes, it's easy to find them on TV and on the web. Malkin and others make themselves less interesting by trying to make the same sale (nearly) all the time. I probably agree with her over half the time but she's not a fun read.
Posted Fri, Nov 6, 9:53 a.m. inappropriate
For the record, I'm confident that when Malkin referred to Seattle's "constipated leaders," she was not referring to Charley, nor to Ammons, neither of whom has ever been accused of constipation. --Ross
Posted Fri, Nov 6, 10:58 a.m. inappropriate
She was never about "ideas," and she never had a "plan," so wondering about what was never there is a fool's errand. She's all about the Benjamins, and always has been.
Posted Fri, Nov 6, 11:36 a.m. inappropriate
Thanks, Ivan, for proving my point: Tribalism thrives on both extremes.
Posted Fri, Nov 6, 12:13 p.m. inappropriate
My thanks go to Ammons
Posted Fri, Nov 6, 12:17 p.m. inappropriate
Thanks, Ross, for proving Dante's point: "The hottest fires in hell are reserved for those who, in a time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality."
Posted Fri, Nov 6, 1:05 p.m. inappropriate
I could be mistaken, but my memory is that another reason Malkin left for D.C. was her husband had scored one of those "gubmint" jobs conservatives love to rail against.
Posted Fri, Nov 6, 1:06 p.m. inappropriate
Ross,
Another fine piece by one of my personal heroes in Seattle journalism.
I hope you do more for Crosscut, a place where you can still find reasoned commentary and reasonable conversation in the comments.--Casey Corr
Posted Fri, Nov 6, 1:12 p.m. inappropriate
Malkin left the libertarian ranch a long time ago, I think -- see her enthusiastic defense of internment camps during WWII. It's always hard to tell with these folks if they actually believe what they say, or just figured out that it's a ticket to journalistic success in an imploding business.
Posted Fri, Nov 6, 1:49 p.m. inappropriate
In a city that prides itself on its tolerance, there isn't much for opinions that stray from the politically correct.
Political and economic libertarians, free-market conservatives, people of faith, and others like them are increasingly unwelcome in the Seattle area because what we say is uncomfortable to hear. The truth always hurts.
The anger expressed toward Michelle Malkin, who I've found to be a polite and gracious woman, is unnerving. Of course, I experience it too, but that's beside the point. But I suppose she'd agree with me that the louder the squeals, the more we know we're on to something - we've struck a nerve.
If all you want to hear are points of view that agree with your own, then how do you learn, stretch yourself, grow, or be challenged? And if the only people you associate with are those with whom you are in agreement, how boring is your life?
The seasoning of intellectual, political, and religious diversity adds zest to life. Try it - you'll like it. And those of us on the right aren't here to make your lives miserable - we're here to lay out the path to freedom.
No thanks necessary...
The Piper
Posted Fri, Nov 6, 1:59 p.m. inappropriate
Name anyone from the extinct P/I and/or Blethen Times that can hold a candle to Michelle Malkin! Her national success dwarfs the local dwarfs. This crosscut rant doe not even challenge any factual writings within Malkin's hundreds of columns and numerous books. It follows the lunacy of her hysterical, poor taste, trash talking critics on the comedy, parody, tribal, cable faux news network called msnbc (small caps intentional). I sense jealousy, envy, and sour grapes.
Posted Fri, Nov 6, 2:43 p.m. inappropriate
Hmmm.... so the judgement of quality is based on National Success... Wow.
If you can sell pet rocks, you must be awe inspiring.
Animalal... Malkin lost me when she tried to prove Internment of 130,000 Japanese Americans was a good idea. She writes this stuff to sell print, even if it means denying her own family history. She is seriously a sell out, and willing to inflame and defame to sell copy. Funny how she never made a case to inter Italian Americans or German American, or even those with Nazi sympathies... I hope she is comfortable with her money. I bet her relatives are not.
Posted Fri, Nov 6, 3:35 p.m. inappropriate
She became what she beheld; only as a mirror image. That's geniunely too bad. As the Republicans and Democrats draw up their complementary lists of which human endeavors they wish to make illegal or compulsory, the thing this country needs more of is small-L libertarians. Especially libertarians who are hot babes.
Posted Fri, Nov 6, 5:09 p.m. inappropriate
I enjoyed Malkin's Times stint, and her libertarianism. Her politics seemed to take a turn after 9-11 (e.g. defending of the internment camps). Too bad, and Ross is right on. I miss the old Michelle, for whom Seattle was such a target-rich environment.
As to national columnists from the Times/P-I world: Try NYTimes columnist Tim Egan (former P-I reporter). The NYTimes should sack Friedman give Tim his credit card and frequent flier miles, not to mention his editorial page slot.
Posted Sat, Nov 7, 1:12 a.m. inappropriate
I'm not sure why so many young intellectuals, particularly women, pick up the so-called "objectivist" philosophy of Ayn Rand. I thought most grew away from it over time. But it's apparent that rather than evolving from that, Malkin proceeded to wrap herself ever more tightly with that banner and in the process found taking the "extreme" view pays well. I often wonder if she actually believes much of what she writes. In Malkin's case though, I believe it isn't a matter of Tribalism so much as it is Capitalism.
Posted Sat, Nov 7, 5:23 a.m. inappropriate
I've never enjoyed Michelle Malkin, I find her brand of paranoid egotism boring as hell. Same with Ayn Rand. I want to like both of them just for being unconventional and ambitious. But it's hard to like or admire a "writer" who has no curiosity.
Posted Sat, Nov 7, 3:52 p.m. inappropriate
Malkin's pieces in the Times were some of the best journalism ever done around here. I too have speculated on Malkin returning to the an active libertarian center.
Malkin is smart, hopefully smart enough to stay ahead of the implosion within the traditional Republican party. We need folks who can lead us from the center with fire, not the status quo anchors we have now dragging us all to the bottom - fringe elements not withstanding.
I met Malkin while she was here and would be vain enough to feel a part of the conversation that led to her work, her success on the extreme right is remarkable.
Posted Sun, Nov 8, 9:10 a.m. inappropriate
I don't want to short-change all of the contributions to society that columnists make -- after all a good number of them have decided to comment on this piece -- but I have always thought most columnists were working out their psychoses on the printed page. Maybe that's less evident in some columns, like Ammons' and Anderson's. But reading the Malkins and Bergers of the world, my hypothesis seems pretty evident (at least to me). Call me cynical, but being an attractive, flame-throwing conservative is a pretty good way to achieve a small fortune in America. Why should any of us think that Malkin's views are anything but a means to that end (and some unresolved issues about the chilliness at the Times)?
Posted Sun, Nov 8, 4:37 p.m. inappropriate
Malkin is a one-time libertarian and objectivist. To still consider her a libertarian or Objectivist is a smear. She has become a hard-line conservative hack who will defend any policy that conservatives consider expediant. Your article seems to confuse her now conservative views with her previous libertarian opinions. You seem to want to smear libertarian thought with conservative thinking. You don't seem to be mind confusing the reader. That is called intellectual dishonesty.
Posted Mon, Nov 9, 7:42 a.m. inappropriate
Thanks for this article. Yes, Michelle's shift to hard-right has been on my mind a lot.
She and I met when I was running the medical marijuana campaigns in the late 90's. I found her engaging, and indeed, a breath of fresh air in Seattle. I was hopeful that her voice would mean something here.
But, on the National stage, I've found her ideas shallow and her reasoning poor. Too bad.
Posted Tue, Nov 10, 8:16 a.m. inappropriate
I read the book too and noticed she mentioned another of your former Timesmen, Rick Anderson (a much better columnist than she)now at the Weekly, citing his reporting on Locke's more questionable (corrupt?) decisions as governor. In fact, she seems to rely a lot on others for her "reporting" in the book. As you mention, she is a busy bee and I sense a laziness in the book with her frequent citations of work done elsewhere. Fortunately, someone gave me the book for free.
Posted Thu, Nov 12, 7:43 p.m. inappropriate
Hacknflack says,
Malkin lost me when she tried to prove Internment of 130,000 Japanese Americans was a good idea. She writes this stuff to sell print, even if it means denying her own family history.
I don't know what that family history is, but are we aware that her background is Filipino, not Japanese? Those who knew her during her Seattle stint have a different recollection, but since I've been following her, the practice has been to show up as an obnoxious proponent of quite indefensible viewpoints (such as WWII internment of Japanese-Americans).
Posted Thu, Nov 12, 9 p.m. inappropriate
Really nice piece, Ross. I wonder if and when people will begin listening rather than shouting at each other. Thank you for calling her out!