Fiery US Pinay is a conservative icon
STEVEN KNIPP WASHINGTON DC
Quick, take 30 seconds to think of some of the
foremost conservative media figures in the United
States.
If the image that immediately pops into your mind is
that of pasty, pudgy, mostly well past 50-year-old
males, don’t feel bad. You’re not the only one. The
likely names and images that most people conjure
up include middle aged men like Bill O’Reilly, Sean
Hannity, Fred Barnes, Newt Gingrich or Rush
Limbaugh.
Yet, one of America’s best-known conservative
political commentators is neither pudgy nor pasty:
She is petite, pretty, well under 50, and could never
be called pasty. Her name is Michelle Malkin, and
though her newspaper columns appear in some
150 American newspapers, and her blogs attract
nearly 400,000 readers, and she’s a regular guest
on nationwide television, few Americans know that
the writer whom the esteemed The New York Times
has called a “firecracker” is a Filipino-American.
Whether you agree with her views or not – and many
people don’t – Malkin has carved a name for
herself, as well as a unique position in American
media.
The 36-year-old Malkin was born in Philadelphia to
Philippine immigrants. Her father was a doctor, her
mother a schoolteacher. She grew up in a small
town in southern New Jersey. At Holy Spirit High
School, she was an editor of the school newspaper.
Initially, she wanted to be a concert pianist and
enrolled in Oberlin college, a school well-known for
its fine music department. But she later changed
her major from music to English, and again was
soon writing for Oberlin’s student newspaper.
It was while at university that Michelle met her future
husband, Jessie, who later won a Rhodes
scholarship to study in Oxford.
After graduating in 1992, Michelle began her career
as a reporter for a small newspaper in Los Angles.
A year later, she married Jessie and the couple
moved to Seattle, where Michelle joined the Seattle
Times.
Eight years ago, she moved to Washington DC to
join a conservative think-tank.
By 2004, she had her first blog up and running, and
from that point, career has soared to a point where
she has become a cultural icon for America’s
conservatives but a pariah for many American
liberals.
A strong supporter of the right to bear arms, she
claims she owns a gun herself. In addition to her
two websites, her weekly newspaper columns, and
her frequent television appearances, Malkin is also
the author of three books. All three have been highly
controversial, and all have brought her equal parts
of fame and infamy.
Her first book, published in 2002, was Invasion:
How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals
and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores. It is a
detailed indictment of illegal immigration and Malkin’
s views of the consequences, both economic and
social, for the US.
Her second tome, entitled In Defense of Internment,
was even more controversial, because it defended
the infamous incarceration of more than 100,000
American citizens of Japanese descent after Japan
attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
Although she claims that the US government’s
imprisonment of Japanese Americans in remote
internment camps during World War II was justified,
not a single Japanese-American was ever found to
have been disloyal to their country.
Despite this fact, Malkin has been a strong advocate
of the government using racial profiling for Muslim
Americans, as an efficient way to root out possible
terrorist groups operating in the US. The book sold
well enough to get on The New York Times best-
seller list.
Malkin’s latest book, Unhinged: Exposing Liberals
Gone Wild, was published in 2005. When reviewing
it, Publishers Weekly said: “Malkin uses extremist
bloggers and air-headed celebrities as exemplars
of the left, cherry-picking the most egregiously
tasteless examples of ill-conceived commentary or
inflammatory behavior to bolster her case that
liberals, as a whole, have gone off their rockers.
Right-wingers looking for affirmation will enjoy.”
She has never been afraid to call people names,
and in turn she herself has been labeled everything
from “mean spirited” to a “battle-axe”. The
Washington Post called her “hard right”. One Asian-
American website called her “The Radical Right’s
Asian Pit bull.”
(Filipino Globe made several attempts to contact
her, but she did not return calls seeking comment).
Malkin, who has two small children, has not been
afraid to criticise the Philippines either and was
quick to do so when Manila decided to remove its
small military contingent in Iraq, in a column.
She has long been a critic of rappers and hip hop
singers who litter their songs with four-letter words,
and whose lyrics routinely demean women, an
issue on which, for once at least, she has received
support from both right and left wingers.
Long supportive of President Bush’s war in Iraq,
Malkin is one of very few bloggers or Washington
Beltway writers who has actually been brave
enough to visit Iraq, spending a week with a US
Army unit in Baghdad.
But with the president’s popularity falling every
week, both houses of Congress now in Democratic
control, and the likelihood that a Democrat will win
the White House in 2008, it appears that the
influence of conservative figures is fast fading. As
America begins to move back towards the political
center, Michelle Malkin’s many fans and followers
may fade away as well.
Yet her strongest supporters insist that only a fool
would underestimate this fiery Filipino-American
flame-thrower.
STEVEN KNIPP WASHINGTON DC
Quick, take 30 seconds to think of some of the
foremost conservative media figures in the United
States.
If the image that immediately pops into your mind is
that of pasty, pudgy, mostly well past 50-year-old
males, don’t feel bad. You’re not the only one. The
likely names and images that most people conjure
up include middle aged men like Bill O’Reilly, Sean
Hannity, Fred Barnes, Newt Gingrich or Rush
Limbaugh.
Yet, one of America’s best-known conservative
political commentators is neither pudgy nor pasty:
She is petite, pretty, well under 50, and could never
be called pasty. Her name is Michelle Malkin, and
though her newspaper columns appear in some
150 American newspapers, and her blogs attract
nearly 400,000 readers, and she’s a regular guest
on nationwide television, few Americans know that
the writer whom the esteemed The New York Times
has called a “firecracker” is a Filipino-American.
Whether you agree with her views or not – and many
people don’t – Malkin has carved a name for
herself, as well as a unique position in American
media.
The 36-year-old Malkin was born in Philadelphia to
Philippine immigrants. Her father was a doctor, her
mother a schoolteacher. She grew up in a small
town in southern New Jersey. At Holy Spirit High
School, she was an editor of the school newspaper.
Initially, she wanted to be a concert pianist and
enrolled in Oberlin college, a school well-known for
its fine music department. But she later changed
her major from music to English, and again was
soon writing for Oberlin’s student newspaper.
It was while at university that Michelle met her future
husband, Jessie, who later won a Rhodes
scholarship to study in Oxford.
After graduating in 1992, Michelle began her career
as a reporter for a small newspaper in Los Angles.
A year later, she married Jessie and the couple
moved to Seattle, where Michelle joined the Seattle
Times.
Eight years ago, she moved to Washington DC to
join a conservative think-tank.
By 2004, she had her first blog up and running, and
from that point, career has soared to a point where
she has become a cultural icon for America’s
conservatives but a pariah for many American
liberals.
A strong supporter of the right to bear arms, she
claims she owns a gun herself. In addition to her
two websites, her weekly newspaper columns, and
her frequent television appearances, Malkin is also
the author of three books. All three have been highly
controversial, and all have brought her equal parts
of fame and infamy.
Her first book, published in 2002, was Invasion:
How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals
and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores. It is a
detailed indictment of illegal immigration and Malkin’
s views of the consequences, both economic and
social, for the US.
Her second tome, entitled In Defense of Internment,
was even more controversial, because it defended
the infamous incarceration of more than 100,000
American citizens of Japanese descent after Japan
attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
Although she claims that the US government’s
imprisonment of Japanese Americans in remote
internment camps during World War II was justified,
not a single Japanese-American was ever found to
have been disloyal to their country.
Despite this fact, Malkin has been a strong advocate
of the government using racial profiling for Muslim
Americans, as an efficient way to root out possible
terrorist groups operating in the US. The book sold
well enough to get on The New York Times best-
seller list.
Malkin’s latest book, Unhinged: Exposing Liberals
Gone Wild, was published in 2005. When reviewing
it, Publishers Weekly said: “Malkin uses extremist
bloggers and air-headed celebrities as exemplars
of the left, cherry-picking the most egregiously
tasteless examples of ill-conceived commentary or
inflammatory behavior to bolster her case that
liberals, as a whole, have gone off their rockers.
Right-wingers looking for affirmation will enjoy.”
She has never been afraid to call people names,
and in turn she herself has been labeled everything
from “mean spirited” to a “battle-axe”. The
Washington Post called her “hard right”. One Asian-
American website called her “The Radical Right’s
Asian Pit bull.”
(Filipino Globe made several attempts to contact
her, but she did not return calls seeking comment).
Malkin, who has two small children, has not been
afraid to criticise the Philippines either and was
quick to do so when Manila decided to remove its
small military contingent in Iraq, in a column.
She has long been a critic of rappers and hip hop
singers who litter their songs with four-letter words,
and whose lyrics routinely demean women, an
issue on which, for once at least, she has received
support from both right and left wingers.
Long supportive of President Bush’s war in Iraq,
Malkin is one of very few bloggers or Washington
Beltway writers who has actually been brave
enough to visit Iraq, spending a week with a US
Army unit in Baghdad.
But with the president’s popularity falling every
week, both houses of Congress now in Democratic
control, and the likelihood that a Democrat will win
the White House in 2008, it appears that the
influence of conservative figures is fast fading. As
America begins to move back towards the political
center, Michelle Malkin’s many fans and followers
may fade away as well.
Yet her strongest supporters insist that only a fool
would underestimate this fiery Filipino-American
flame-thrower.
Whether you agree
with her views or
not – and many
people don’t –
Malkin has carved
a name for herself,
as well as a unique
position in
American media
with her views or
not – and many
people don’t –
Malkin has carved
a name for herself,
as well as a unique
position in
American media
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