Wow.  Just when you think she can’t out-do her slimy self, Michelle lowers the bar.  As a promotion for her new book about "unhinged" Democrats, Michelle posts mug shot photos — 26 of them by my count — of people you never heard of, but who supposedly are Democrats.  They include people like Samuel Meseck.

Who is Samuel Meseck, you ask?

Exactly.  That’s my point.

(Samuel Meseck was some kid who was arrested and booked for purportedly throwing a cup of salad dressing at Pat Buchanan).

Michelle’s thesis, based on the behavior of a few people who you have never heard of, is that Democrats have what Michelle calls "unhinged disease".  She claims it "has infected the entire party leadership and its liberal body politic". 

Yet, all we see in her post are mug shots of people you have never heard of, doing minor (admittedly wrong) pranks.  A really stupid promo, Michelle, seeing as how a major party player in your party just got indicted, and others are still being investigated. 

And you want to talk mug shots?  Have you already forgotten the mug shot of Tom Delay, the leader of your party, from only two weeks ago?

And you come back some guy named Samuel Meseck and other people that nobody ever heard of?

You may well ask: What evidence does Michelle have that this "unhinged disease" affects the entire Democratic Party leadership?  She won’t say (you have to "buy the book", she writes).

I’ll save you the money.  Even if you are a conservative, you know what the book will contain: cherry-picked quotes from people that Michelle disagrees with.  Some of those quotes, I expect, may even be infused with anger and indigination.

And so what?  Many honest and true patriotic Americans (a majority, in fact) actually believe that we are headed down the wrong path, and are concerned about our country’s falling stature and lack of credibility.  They don’t like seeing American soldiers dying in a needless war.  Simply put, they don’t like Bush and what Bush is doing to this country.  This does not make people "unhinged" — it simply makes them opposed to Michelle’s beliefs.  Michelle would be well advised to learn the difference.

Michelle, the people who fled Jonestown weren’t the ones who were "unhinged".  But those who stayed and drank the Kool-Aid most definitely were.

Her book, and others like it, is basically unsophisticated claptrap designed to give comfort to the ever-decreasing minority of people who can’t admit — even now — that we were misled into war.  They can’t defend their indefensible position with facts and logic, so what do they do instead?  They engage in ad hominem attacks on those who disagree with their position.   It’s the oldest tactic in the neo-con playbook.   It’s so old, in fact, that it is trite and predictable.  And, in some cases, indictable.

I mean, look at the title of her book: "Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild".  What’s the subject of the book?  A thoughtful expose of the policies, facts, and intelligence that lead up to Iraq?  A serious critique of the Democratic platform?  No.  The subject is people — "liberals", to be specific.  Classic ad hominem.

Michelle tries to pre-empt such criticisms by writing:

Critics will argue that these fine folks do not represent mainstream liberalism and that Republicans are just as bad.

You know, I’m no political scientist, but if people like Samuel Meseck represent mainstream liberalism, then Pat Buchanan should be covered with salad dressing all the time.  Yet, he’s not.

Anyway, Michelle doesn’t actually deny that Republicans engage in bad behavior.  Instead, she dodges and weaves by pointing out — believe it or not — even more things that "Democrats" (and presumably only Democrats) have done.

For example: Democrats chainsawing Republican campaign signs.  Is Michelle saying that sign destruction/theft is not a problem caused by followers of both parties?  If so, that’s Bullshit.

Is she saying that Republicans don’t get drunk and yell obscenities at police? If so, that’s Bullshit.

Is she saying that Republicans don’t physically destroy Democratic ballots? If so, that’s  Bullshit.

Is she saying Republican operatives don’t engage in illegal phone-jamming in order to frustrate and prevent Democrat votes?  If so, that’s Bullshit.

The point is this:  we can play this game until forever.  There’s plenty of mud to be thrown — it is after all, politics.  But the LIE that Michelle furthers is that the "disease" of corruption and bad behavior "is far more pervasive, intense, and sanctimoniously self-delusional than anything on the Right".   Coming from Malkin, that wins the prize for the most unintentionally ironic statement of the year.

Michelle, when all evidence in recent weeks suggests that the Republican party is the one with serious ethical issues, how self-delusional do you have to be to think things are far pervasive on the embarrassingly docile left?  Are you seriously going to equate a college student who flips the bird at Ann Coulter with — oh, I don’t know — a White House official who leaks classifed CIA information to reporters?

Michelle accusing Democrats of being "unhinged" and "self-delusional" is worse than the pot calling the kettle black.  It’s like the pot calling the kettle black, when the kettle is actually off-white.  Talk about self-delusion.

She also seriously needs to understand the concept of "context", and employ the phrases like "in the sense that".  For example, she notes:

[I]t wasn’t a Republican who asserted that the war in Iraq was “just as bad as six million Jews being killed.” That was Democrat Rep. Charlie Rangel…

Yes, Rangel said that.  Yet, if one reads his full quote, you get the context:

"This is just as bad as six million Jews being killed. The whole world knew it and they were quiet about it, because it wasn’t their ox that was being gored."

Now, even Michelle would probably admit that Rangel wasn’t saying that the Iraq war was literally killing six millions Jews.   That simply makes no sense.  Obviously, Rangel was saying that the Iraq War was like the Holocaust in the sense that . . . what?  And here’s the part that Michelle ignores.  Rangel explained the quote by saying:

"I am saying that people’s silence when they know terrible things are happening is the same thing as the Holocaust, where everyone would have me believe that no one knew those Jews were killed over there."

Source

So Rangel wasn’t saying that Bush=Hitler (or whatever Michelle is trying to insinuate); he was simply saying that people turned a blind eye to the bogusness of the offered rationale for the Iraq War, just as they turned a blind eye to the holocaust.  Even if you disagree with that particular analogy, there’s nothing "unhinged" about his underlying point.  Hell — even conservatives are acknowledging that "everybody" tacitly understood that Bush’s war rationale (WMDs, the impending threat, etc.) was largely bogus:

As the for the run-up to the war, in looking back I think it was a big game of charades that everybody understood. Despite what was said, the obvious US motivation was geo-political.

That’s conservative blogger and war-supporter Roger Simon, yesterday, admiting what supposedly "unhinged" liberals have been saying for years.

But that type of analysis is beyond Michelle Malkin’s capabilities as a . . . pundit (I wouldn’t call her a journalist, and certainly not an academic researcher).  She typifies what many right wing holdouts have been reduced to: engaging in lame ad hominem attacks, shilling a lintany of NewsMax-inspired outrages, and fevered partisan spin.   Good God, such spin.  And doing all of that rather poorly.  Pathetic.

So if you are one of those remaining few who needs support for your unsupportable positions, who thinks that by saying "Look at the crazy liberals" passes for intelligent discourse, who needs your head patted because you can’t admit that you’re swimming in KoolAid, Michelle’s book is for you.  She’ll remind you of how wonderful and righteous you are, by making you think how weird others are.  And all will be well in your tiny little insular bubble.

RELATED:  Speaking of hateful liberal-bashing conservative pundits, I love this passage from a Steve Gilliard post on that issue:

My favorite is that conservatives, faced with facts, like to say liberals are hate-filled people who want to kill babies and keep negroes on the plantation.

That would be compelling, except for one thing: they have no credibility.

For the sponsor of the Bell Curve to call a black man racist is like me calling Michael Moore fat. How that can be a credible argument is beyond me. It literally is like waving kryptonite at Batman. What is he supposed to do, run? Kryptonite has no effect on Batman. Maybe conservatives might one day realize it.

MORE:  In the same vein, The Liberal Avenger takes the Malkins (yes, plural) to task for their (yes, plural) gross exaggerations about "How Liberals Celebrate Halloween".  The crux:

I’m going on record saying that this liberal – and every liberal I know – usually celebrates Halloween by taking the kids out trick or treating.

Michelle and Jesse’s fantasy about liberals sticking bibles up their asses, etc. in the name of Halloween says a lot more about them than it does about liberals.

Indeed.

P.S.  Pssst, Michelle.  Fillipinos celebrate Halloween by visiting the graves of their relatvies, where they watch television, do karaoke, get drunk and gamble.  Does this pass the Malkin Halloween Board of Standard and Practices . . . or is it "unhinged"?  I’m just asking….