Review written 2005
Just finished (did you know that the book review heading on my old web site was called "Just finished...," because I almost always started my review with those words?) reading Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild, which, depending on your political persuasion, is either an extremely biased rant against the forces of Liberal reason and rationality, or an objective look at the excesses of the "barking moonbats" of the Leftist horde, or maybe just a bit of both.
What it is, is a pretty well documented book about a number of instances of extreme insensitivity, race baiting, ad hominem attacks, and even criminal behavior by spokesman, self-appointed or otherwise, of the Liberal Left. Malkin explores PEST, Post Election Selection Trauma, which apparently severely affected many of those who campaigned for or voted for John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential race, incapacitating them for days, weeks or months after his loss to Bush. She explores some of the liberal conspiracy theories, such as believing that the CIA blew up the World Trade Center towers, that the capture of Saddam Hussein was staged at an opportune moment; he'd been in custody for months previously, or that Bush has secret plans for a military draft.
She talks about liberals' failure to support our troops during the War on Terror and the War in Iraq, their attacks on campus recruiters and recruiting stations, and their abusive behavior towards war veterans and their families. She talks about college environments which condone and even encourage viewpoints such as Ward Churchill's, that the people who worked in the WTC deserved what happened to them, for their complicity in the military industrial complex's bid for world domination (Gosh, some people never really grew out of the sixties, did they?).
She spends some time discussing the rabid anti-Bush sentiment of many of the entertainers in Hollywood. Given the total fantasy of the world these people generally live in, who relies on them for any kind of reality check, anyway? (digression here - I was watching an Oprah-clone talk show one day, and the topic was successful relationships. The host had three guests (models and actresses - C or D list, I can't really say) who were there to give us their sage advice. The first one says something along the lines of "I've always been single," the second says her longest relationship was 1-1/2 years, and the third was married for several years and got divorced. My first and last thought - I turned to another channel at that point - was "why in the world would you ask one of these people how to sustain a long term monogamous relationship?" If I want to know how, I'll ask one of my acquaintances who have been married for 20, 50, or 65 years. - end digression).
Malkin also has a chapter filled with the venomous attacks upon her personally from liberals who have taken great offense to the opinions she expresses on her blog, and/or the columns she writes for conservative web sites, and/or the bloviating she gets to do on Fox News, especially The O'Reilly Factor. If you're at all sensitive or easily offended by foul language, I suggest you skip this chapter, or perhaps use a black magic marker to clean it up a bit. The rest of the chapter is the same sort of thing that she's collected from other web sites, posted by people who disagreed with some poor conservative schmuck.
Ok, so I was shocked and appalled by the obscene personal attacks on Mrs. Malkin. I, personally, wouldn't dream of talking to my worst enemy in the world that way, even if they'd spoken to me in that fashion first. However, from my surfing excursions, I've noticed that this stuff is pretty common on political blogs -- why, I can't imagine, as it doesn't further rational discourse in any way, shape or form. Perhaps I'll even receive some of it for posting this review.
To be as objective as possible here, there's a ton of invective being tossed back and forth in the political arena these days, both online and offline, that falls far beyond the pale of what not so long ago was considered common courtesy. I'm not even talking dirty politics, here, but rather the vicious attacks - verbal and/or physical - which evoke Wrestlemania far more than boxing by Queensbury rules.
All in all, a quick and entertaining, and sometimes maddening, read.
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