Unhinged

November 28, 2005
The spewing of vitriol, epithets and wild conspiracy theories suggest a collective nervous breakdown among liberals, according to conservative commentator Malkin who, in her latest book, makes no distinction between moderate and extreme liberals; everyone left of right is a nut who suffers from PEST-Post Election Selection Trauma. This syndrome, she explains, is democratic (small d), affecting stuffed-donkey clutching college students and seasoned congressmen and journalists whose overweening diatribes and hand-wringing Malkin has seized to illustrate an emotionally charged and irrational hatred of everything conservative. Malkin scoured blogs, speeches, media commentaries and even transcripts from Oprah for material, though she misses the boat in a number of instances, most notably in her obliviousness to sarcasm and irony, and she overextends her analytical prowess by offering shallow, shoddy critiques of theater, literature and modern art. Malkin uses extremist bloggers and airheaded 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.

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