Michelle Malkin

Michelle Malkin writes a nationally syndicated column that appears in about 200 newspapers and is available online at the conservative website Townhall.com. She also maintains a personal weblog, MichelleMalkin.com.

Malkin is a frequent guest on Fox News Channel and is author of three books: Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores (Regnery, 2002), In Defense of Internment: The Case for "Racial Profiling" in World War II and the War on Terror (Regnery, 2004), and Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild (Regnery, 2005).

In Defense of Internment was widely criticized and was debunked in an 11-part blog series by Eric Muller of the University at North Carolina Law School and Greg Robinson of the University of Quebec at Montreal; the series includes responses and correspondence from Malkin.

Malkin's primary issue of concern is immigration, and her thoughts on this subject appear on her Immigration Blog, as well as VDARE.com, a website that describes itself as "white nationalist." In 2003, the Southern Poverty Law Center added VDARE.com to its list of hate websites.

In November 2004, the Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk, Virginia, dropped Malkin's column: "[R]eaders often took issue with her [Malkin's] seemingly mean-spirited rantings and suggested that she be dropped," the paper's public editor said.

Supporting racial profiling

"And, um, all I will say is that I think that -- that, uh, these -- these, uh, uh, categorizations: Race, ethnicity, religion, etc., shouldn't be taken off the table. And I'll tell you -- you've got these civil liberties hypocrites -- these liberal hypocrites ... who have no problem using these classifications if it means that, uh, they can have diversity in police departments or fire departments or to, uh, affect and socially engineer, uh, a campus." [8/11/04]

Defending WWII internment camps

"I think that, based on the military intelligence and legal assessments at the time, the Roosevelt administration did the best that it could do [interning Japanese-Americans]. [8/9/04]

Attacked Transportation Secretary Mineta: WWII internment "clouded" his views

"[If] the Bush administration wants to do one single concrete thing, it could get rid of [Transportation Secretary] Norm[an Y.] Mineta, who embodies this problem. He is somebody who experienced the evacuation during World War II. He was evacuated to a camp in Heart Mountain, Wyoming. And it has clouded, it has absolutely clouded his view of what needs to be done now." [8/11/04]

Repeating conservative talking points

Malkin is often among the conservative writers who help move a story or talking point from the fringe to the mainstream. A few examples that Media Matters has tracked:

• Cindy Sheehan "changed her story on Bush"? Tracking a lie through the conservative media [8/10/05]
• Media Matters identifies unresolved questions on Martinez memo [4/8/05]
• Dissecting a right-wing smear: How conservatives used trumped-up evidence to blame Democrats for Schiavo memo [4/7/05]
• Conservatives pounced on comments by new Senate minority leader, labeled him a racist [12/9/04]

Memorable TV appearances

Hardball's Matthews took Michelle Malkin to task for outrageous claims [8/20/04]

Conservatives celebrated Malkin's false statements on Hardball as she denounced Matthews; Limbaugh, Malkin lied about Olbermann [8/23/04]

Malkin not convinced that Bush's video conference with troops was "staged" [10/19/05]