Michelle Malkin: strong on illegal aliens, weak on obstreperous guests

Michelle Malkin had a worthwhile column the other day about the government’s failure to deport criminal aliens—meaning legal immigrants and illegal aliens who have been convicted of a crime—once they have finished their jail term. She tells of various freed criminal aliens who have gone on to commit further horrible crimes against Americans. Scandalously, there is still no unified national data base to keep track of criminal aliens in the U.S. prison system. Authorities thus have no way of knowing who the aliens are, where they are incarcerated, and when their term will be over, and thus are unable to prevent their simply being released back into society. Truly, truly, if we cannot get our act together enough to deport criminal aliens, then every other type of enforcement that was promised by Team Busheron in the great immigration “compromise” was a total fraud. (Of course, we already knew that, 70 times over.)

But here’s something else. I’m told by a friend that Michelle Malkin substituted tonight for Bill O’Reilly on his tv show and that her guest was a pro-open borders type. The topic was criminal aliens, but he wouldn’t let her speak and kept shouting over her, saying things like: “How are you going to know who they are? By their color? Because they’re Latino? Because they’re African?” Of course the issue has nothing to do with race, and Malkin did retort, correctly, that this is simply about removing criminal non-citizens from this country when they finish their prison sentence. But the man kept shouting over her.

My friend asked what Malkin could have done. I said that she should have stopped the show, had the guest’s microphone removed, and had him escorted out. My friend agreed that by failing to remove the man, and instead trying to shout over him, Malkin looked weak.

Come on Michelle, if you don’t have the steel to kick a misbehaving guest off your tv show, how is anyone going to think that you’re serious about kicking criminal foreigners out of your country?

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Alex K. writes:

Here’s the video of Malkin and that open borders guest.

You may find it much worse than even it sounded when your friend described it. The mindless carnival nature of these shows is pretty much inevitable with doofuses like Hannity and O’Reilly running them. But it’s genuinely dispiriting when someone smart and serious like Michelle wastes her time like this.

In fairness, she doesn’t have a lot of experience hosting and it’s not her show so she may have felt uncomfortable shutting down guests the way she needed to shut this guy down. (She’d probably have to demand that a producer do it; I doubt she has a little panel in front of her where she can push a button and an uncooperative guest falls down a trap door…though all political talk show hosts should have such a setup!)

But for that matter, why have a cretin like this guy on at all?

Alex continues:

Wow, I only just noticed that Rosemary Jenks essentially never got to speak (she interjects a few words at one point). That’s extremely embarassing for Malkin and the show in general.

LA replies:

That’s pathetic.Rosemary Jenks is one of the most respected persons working in this field, and Malkin let this lout prevent her from speaking? Malkin sounds like a liberal to me.

I remember once years ago, I saw a replay of a tv show from the Sixties, there was a woman, an older, conservative woman with an interview program, and she had as a guest, I think it was Abbie Hoffman or Jerry Rubin, and the guest was being obnoxious and disrespectful, possibly dirty-mouthed, and in the middle of the show the hostess just said, “Stop the program!” The guest looked stunned, no one had ever done that to him before. But she stopped the program. The camera kept rolling for a bit so this whole scene was preserved.with the guess sitting there looking as though he had been kicked in the gut.

Malkin didn’t have to do that but she had to so something. She is a frequent guest-host and must have some ability to take initiative on the set of that program.

. David H. writes:

Michelle Malkin is not the only talk-show host who has failed to curb out-of-control guests. Even while watching Lou Dobbs, I have squirmed while guests filibustered, interrupted, and gave non-responsive answers to questions. In your no doubt justified criticism of this particular guest, I think it would be appropriate to mention his or her name. The power of the press is the power to embarrass.

Jeff in England writes:

Watched the Malkin video and yes she was far too polite and passive. She is not a professional host especially not the type this sort of show has. You have to be tough.

A reader writes:

The guest was on satellite, not in the studio. It might have been easier to shut him down then. She should clear with O’Reilly that this would be ok if what Alex K. says is the case.

Richard B. writes:

I saw the Malkin discussion and she did hold her ground while letting this guy make a fool of himself. Whenever she does substitute for O’Reilly, I am sometimes taken aback by how terse she can be to guests she doesn’t like. Kind of acts like a “bitch,” to put it bluntly.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 20, 2007 10:57 PM | Send