Malkin then:

If Portland’s leaders don’t want to help defend America, then let Portland defend itself.

Malkin now:

MOHAMMED CARTOONS IN PORTLAND

Kudos to KATU-TV for covering Cartoon Jihad, and showing all 12 cartoons, in an excellent piece Pakistan’s ban on blogs who have published the fatwa-inducing artwork.

She likes us again. I’m not sure that’s an improvement.

So as you may have heard, Dateline NBC plans to send some obvious Muslims into a NASCAR event to observe what they imagine will be racist results.

Michelle and her readers are reacting as though “there are racists at NASCAR events” isn’t akin to “there are pot smokers at Guster shows.”

Mailbox is filling up with reaction to my blog post this morning about NBC’s Dateline show and its apparent Nascar fans-must-be-racist sting.

A sample:

Reader Joanthan M. calls for “An Army of NASCAR Davids” (meme nod to Glenn Reynolds):

“Just had a thought I wanted to share - what a great opportunity NBC’s news creation can provide to the blogosphere!. If word gets out to NASCAR fans (perhaps in part via your blog) that 1) NBC is trying to paint them as ignorant bigots, 2) they should be extra-super-duper nice to Muslims at the Apr. 8 race, and 3) they should bring their handheld video cameras to tape NBC taping them so that when NBC can’t find any bigotry to air, they can expose Dateline as the one possessed with bigotry, of the anti-red stater race fan variety, that is.”

More pernicious than this particular “defense” - by the way, not all race fans are racists, disclaim disclaim - is the “at least we’re not as racist as them” crowd.

Via Instapundit (read the entire post with updates):

‘[R]eader Eric Hall offers a new assignment: “Dateline NBC ought to take some Christian-looking people to Riyadh and see how things work out. Don’t forget the bikini-clad sister.”‘

Reader Ed:

“Why don’t you set up some white guy with hidden cameras, put a George Bush T-Shirt on him and have him walk down a street in Pakistan. Or, better yet, have him walk down a street in Detroit. I’ll just bet you could get a lot of bigoted reactions.”

It’s good to see the right embracing moral relativism again. I wonder if we can prevail upon Malkin and friends to create some sort of racism chart, so that we know what rules America is now playing by. Obviously “as racist as Muslims” will be at the top, in the red, and unacceptable. But obviously there’s a whole spectrum of bigotry that’s now totally acceptable to the wingers - otherwise why are they so upset about this “manufactured news”? Are the producers planning on injecting the poor innocent rednecks race fans with some sort of racism catalyst?

I didn’t realize that the concept of “entrapment” applied to racism. “But you don’t understand! I’m not normally racist, but for God’s sake, they sent a BROWN GUY into the middle of a NASCAR RACE! What was I supposed to do?”