Whatta Day

I've got a conference call with work in an hour and I'm signed up to put in at least an hour's overtime, though I intend to do more than that, and I haven't showered yet and I slept too late and I wanted to get in some time with the weights in the workout room today but that's looking most unlikely, and my dear boyfriend is doing his part to pick up the slack by hitting the bank and the grocery store and offering to grill us some steaks tonight--thank goodness I didn't auction him off after all!--but still, did it have to be today? Did it have to be today that Michelle Malkin went after one of my bestest internet friends? Over (naturally) something I'm not sure she even read?

Thank goodness Helen is pseudonymous, because she's already received her first death threat from a Malkinite. This is getting to be kind of a THING with Malkin, isn't it? If any of my readers ever threatened to whack somebody I would hide my head in shame and write no more forever. Luckily for me, my readers are smarter, better-looking, and vastly more civilized than Malkin's.

Anyway I intend to have more about this later, time permitting (which so far, it isn't). I'll just throw this out there as a sorta-bleg to any of the right-leaning readers, all 3 of you whom I haven't quite driven off yet (nor do I want to! That was a joke!):

You remember about 2001-2002, maybe 2003 even, there was an argument made by bloggers and some members of the right punditocracy that went something like this:

"The peace protestors and those who want to try Osama bin Laden in the International Criminal Court have got the wrong strategy; we need to take the war to Al Qaeda in order to preserve our freedoms at home. A purely defensive/criminal approach would require us to surrender more of our domestic and civil liberties than we as Americans would be comfortable with."

I know some of the lefties are going "Get the fuck out! They said that? Really? Oh, the irony," and hey, I agree--but no, really, that was one of the arguments. I swear! Take the war over THERE; prevent total lockdown HERE. Anyway, if someone could find me a post saying as much, I would be neverendingly grateful.

Incidentally, a big "Thanks a lot, pal," to Andrew Sullivan, for making it so you can't read his archives 'cept by the Google cache if they're before January 2006. Wasn't I just complaining about this sort of thing?

UPDATE: Longtime readers will recall that I am never in favor of wingnuts going after Helen. Quite apart from my being very fond of her personally, here's why: I respect the difference between personal and political blogs, especially when a blog's leaning one way or the other is as clearly demarcated as this:

The way I figure it is-I know my view on modern events and media, culture, religion and politics. I am happy to talk about them, but I don't see why debating it on my blog will change anything. Now, get us a bottle of single malt whiskey and a Friday evening chat, and I'm in.

Helen writes about Helen. That's what her readers appreciate, that's what her readers go to read; not moonbattery, wingnuttia, or any other stupid reductionist nonsense about which side Hates Our Freedoms more. Helen's blog is a refuge from all that noise, and like any other sanctuary, virtual or physical, I favor protecting it as such.

I am not surprised Michelle Malkin is too wrapped up in her with-us-or-against-us babbling to note the difference between a personal blog and a political one; only disgusted.

UPDATE II: Ryan worries how the Heathrow bomb plot might affect his flight to Baltimore Sunday. To Ryan I ask, in true patriot Malkin fashion, only this: Why do you hate America? (P.S. Quit whining, moonbat!)

UPDATE III: Hear-freakin'-HEAR:

I too am appalled by the idea that I would have to trust my cellphone, ipod, and laptop to the honesty of baggage handlers; that my nieces and nephew wouldn't be allowed crayons or snacks on a long, boring flight; that I can have my contact lenses, but not the solution I need to put them in my eyeballs; that racial profiling is a cheap shortcut in the battle against terror.

That Malkin calls such honest sadness "whining" and "moonbattery" is beyond me.

Ah, but subtlety has long been lost on the hacks of this world. Brava, Caltechgirl!

UPDATE IV: More, from Beth Donovan, aka She Who Must Be Obeyed:

Now, I may not agree with everything that Helen says(mostly her feelings about Lebanon and Blair), but I do agree with her so far as her sadness that travel has become so difficult because of evil. As a frequent traveler, I am not thrilled that the next time I go to the UK, I can't carry on my laptop, my books, my water or my mp3 player. Like Helen, I am concerned about my belongings making it to the other end without being stolen.

But Helen has every damn right to write what she feels. And she is reasonable and sane in her post.

Michelle Malkin, on the other hand, is very unreasonable these days. She has jumped the shark, as far as I am concerned.

Which is weird, because you'd think, after seeing what happened to Coulter, she might learn a thing or two about inflammatory rhetoric and mistakes not worth repeating. Then again, maybe not.

And from Cassandra at Villainous Company:

I, too, have to roll my eyes a bit at the sudden hypervigilance that I know all too well won't last. And as little as I like it, I have to admit that Helen asks some very good questions. Questions that we might not like the answers to.

What I always thought was worth saving about America is that it was a place where questions were accepted, even welcomed. But maybe that makes me a moonbat too.

That's it--today, we are all moonbats. And if "moonbat" is now synonymous with "having opinions contra Madame Malkin's," I've been a moonbat for far longer than even I realized.

UPDATE V: Food of the moonbats.