The always sane and balanced Michelle Malkin launches an internetty jihad against Eric Muller of Is That Legal?, because of this post at ITL?, one that got picked up by the NewWonkette. Muller was duped by a rather poorly Photoshopped picture with Malkin's head on someone else's bikini-clad body. He published it for reasons he explains in the post. When his error was pointed out, he apologized, thusly:
UPDATE, 3:00 p.m.: It appears that I was mistaken when I linked to the picture on flickr below, which I believed to be a picture of Michelle Malkin. I regret my error, and I apologize to Michelle Malkin for it. She has asked that I leave the post up -- indeed, she has reprinted it -- and so I will do as she wishes.
Malkin of course had a right to be mad. But what she doesn't have a right to is the debased notion of "civility" as it is propagandized by racist maniacs like herself, hysterics who habitually take enormous liberties with the truth. Oh, hell, I suppose she has a right to it, but it's awful stupid.
Her thesis, as most notably advanced in a remarkably sloppily-edited book (most thoroughly examined by David Neiwert beginning here; my own small contribution to the discussion is referenced here), is that everyone on the Left is a hate-filled maniac and she and the Right in general represent serious, civilized geniuses. This, after she writes a shoddy book defending the internment of Japanese Americans in WWII. Right.
No better illustration of the fallacies inherent in the Wingnut Civility thesis, however, could be offered than by comparing Muller & Malkin's posts about the Photoshopped picture. Muller finds out his error and apologizes, thus showing a respect for accuracy as well as, uh, civility. Muller's only mistake was falling for a faked picture -- his original post was fair comment by any rational standard.
In response, Malkin tells her readers to contact his dean and publishes his contact information. Which means trying to get him fired, really.
Who's going overboard, now?
I'd be pretty surprised if Malkin's publication of Muller's Dean's email address will have any repercussions beyond the utter bewilderment of an unfortunate secretary. The fact that Muller is indeed a very articulate critic of Malkin's lamentable book on internment is pretty well known, and anyway, it's not all that easy to fire a professor or even get one in trouble, really.
But it's funny, isn't it, just what the world as projected by Malkin and her ideological cohorts seems to look like? Waterboarding and stereotyping and internment, those are Noble Pursuits; calling someone who, say, attempts to justify the practice of torture a "nut," gadzooks!, that is just going too far. Fetch me his scalp, my flying internet monkeys!
"Civility" in Malkinese signifies a silly attempt at justifying everything from the vindictive to the monstrous. And not a damn thing else.