MikeF wrote:
Honestly Vox, except for a minority of people, I’m not sure who you plan on converting anymore. The ardent defenders of Malkin are often those who think that Bush is the spittin image of Reagan. IMO you’re in the end what you’re doing amounts to trying to appeal to the dumb and willfully ignorant.You can’t win this because her supporters desparately want to support anything they feel will get back a quieter, simpler, more traditional America. Malkin offers some of that, you offer a deep challenge.
Space Bunny and I were talking about this a few days ago. She pointed out that regardless of what the facts are, most people will assume that Malkin knows what she’s talking about because they have not heard of me nor do they know the historical facts. I laughed and pointed out that the vast majority of Americans have never heard of Malkin, indeed, most people have not heard of Bill O’Reilly and could not place Dick Cheney if you paid them.
It amuses me when people talk about cable news figures as if they are well-known. If we are going to abandon the truth and concern ourselves with popularity, then the only people whose opinion truly matters are the Britney Spears, Brad Pitts and Jenna Jamesons of the world. I daresay ten times more people would recognize Jenna Jameson’s not-exactly-private parts than Michelle Malkin’s face. The top cable news show is watched by barely one percent of the population, after all.
My primary motivation in all of this was to simply stand up for the truth here because apparently almost no one in the supposedly intellectual commentariat has any idea what it is. Ignorance is rampant; the History Channel – which is the only exposure that many people who consider themselves to be thinking men will have to the matter – recently did a Decisive Battles series on Pharsalus. At one point, the narrator mentioned that Julius Caesar had been married to Pompey’s daughter, Julia. The program got it entirely backwards, however, as it was actually Pompey married to Caesar’s daughter Julia, the episode serves to demonstrate how utterly hopeless the media can be when it comes to matters of iron-clad historical fact. In addition to the easily verified lineage, you’d think the name alone might have given the idiot a hint.
I suspect that not only will the reason for my contempt for Malkin’s grasp on history be very clear to you all within a few hours, I expect most of you will likely share it.