Turning on each other?
In today’s Vent, Malkin is upset about the marketing of “United Flight 93″, which is getting rave reviews from wingers - but Malkin has some reservations.
Head over to the official discussion site for United 93, which is sponsored by Universal Studios. You will be disturbed. In a section called (whining) “Why Do They Hate America?” There’s not a single mention of Osama bin Laden. Instead, you get a Catholic-bashing history lesson about the Crusades, an obligatory sentence blaming the founding of Israel for jihad, and an effort to cast Muslims as perpetual victims of Western oppressors. No mention of the fact that Islamic imperialism began some 450 years before the start of the Crusades.
Anyway, why is the Flight 93 movie site invoking this biased history lesson? (”Dhimmitude” graphic appears onscreen) Do the movie promoters mean to endorse al Qaeda’s terrorist leaders? Because the rationalizations look and sound sickeningly familiar…
Universal Studios has some explaining to do.
How about LA and I give it a shot?
This sounded suspiciously like Malkin’s M.O. of using messages which appear on a discussion board to represent Official Liberal Positions, so I headed over to united93movie.com (Ed.: Corrected. Sorry about that, boys’ soccer team from Oklahoma), which is listed on IMDB as the official site for the movie. Nothing - not even on the message boards - which would qualify as what Malkin is worried about. (There is a section for alternative theories of 9/11, which is unhinged enough for five episodes of Vent, but nothing like what Malkin was referring to.)
LA, meanwhile, followed the link on HotAir (a daring move, I know) to find u93.org, also apparently sponsored by Universal Studios and which contained the link to “Why Do They Hate America” as described by Malkin. He also passed along this:
u93.org is a Christian site. I don’t think it’s official:
United 93 raises some of the most compelling questions of our day including:
* Why do some Muslim groups hate the West?
* What can we do about it?
* How do we effectively discuss these things in our communities?
* What do Muslims really believe?
* What does Jesus say?These kinds of questions are not easily answered. Since 9/11 affected all of us, United 93 gives another opportunity to work out the love of God and love of neighbor within our communities. This website gives you several resources, tools, and active steps to take when looking at these issues.
It certainly seemed offical, what with the prominent Universal Studios copyright and all. WHOIS shed some more light. The IP is owned by Motive Entertainment, with a registrant named Paul Lauer. From Motive’s website:
Lauer is…one of the most well connected entrepreneurs in the Faith and Family Market, having most recently designed and executed the highly-successful marketing campaign for Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” for Icon Productions.
Lauer has gone on to manage grass roots outreach campaigns for the Tom Hanks/Robert Zemeckis film, “The Polar Express,” as well as the record breaking Walden Media/Disney epic series, “The Chronicles of Narnia.” In addition, Lauer has assisted with the marketing and distribution of numerous independent film projects.
In 2002, having experienced first-hand the challenges of bringing independent faith-based and family-friendly films to market, Lauer conceived Motive Entertainment as the missing link to solve this “distribution dilemma”.
So u93.org - the film site which offends Malkin so deeply, which is practicing dhimmitude and selling out the West - is…a site specifically set up to market to Christians. The rest of the site contains sermon outlines, materials for group discussions, and articles with titles like “Faith Matters, but…What do you do when G_d disappears?”
Fear not, though. Malkin’s hordes have already begun to descend on the discussion boards. Things won’t stay on the level of Christian Love for very long.
This proves, without a shadow of a doubt, that the Malkins are unquestionably the greatest research journalists of our time.
Sorry, folks. Didn’t mean to shatter your sarcasm radars there.
Comment by eb — April 27, 2006 @ 6:48 pm
OK. I’ll give Michelle the benefit of the doubt. No, she’s not massaging the facts to suit her cause. No, she’s not hoping her hot air vents will catapult her to a on-air job on a real TV show. No, she doesn’t believe her clever quips (”loose screws”) will dazzle some casting agent who’ll transform her into the next Anne Coulter. She’s just plain stupid.
Comment by thelma — April 27, 2006 @ 6:51 pm
Why does Jesus hate America?
Comment by Sirkowski — April 27, 2006 @ 9:55 pm
I have to admit, I was a bit scared that Malkin’s plunge into multimedia would win her a larger following. I’ve always thought that the Fox’s big edge was its superior production values.
After seeing this, though, which looks like a 2 minute cable access show, I’m not worried anymore.
Comment by gordo — April 28, 2006 @ 1:22 am
No mention of the fact that Islamic imperialism began some 450 years before the start of the Crusades.
Hmmm. Mohammed died in 633; the first Crusade began in 1095. So they’re arguing that Islam has been an agressor religion virtually from its founding. By that same standard, you can argue that Christian imperialism began with Paul’s first missionary journeys, circa 40-50 CE.
Comment by dr sardonicus — April 28, 2006 @ 2:17 am
Michelle wanted me to check the oil in her Satellite of Love, but I like to keep my dipstick clean…
Comment by Crow T. Robot — April 28, 2006 @ 4:26 pm
Why hasn’t anyone commented to that fact on the comment board of the site?
Comment by GayCowboyBob — April 28, 2006 @ 7:33 pm
I tried, GCB, but I think they blocked my IP. Something weird happened, anyway. Wouldn’t surprise me. If someone else wants to, that’d be great.
Comment by Auguste — April 28, 2006 @ 7:35 pm
Did you really have to make me think about wingers being turned on by Malkin?
Comment by D. Sidhe — April 29, 2006 @ 9:00 am
Gordo, her “Vent” gig might be a form of practice for her. For the last year or so I’ve suspected that she is gunning to have her own show on Fox. She has filled in for Sean Hannity on occasion. In addition to trying to develop her tv persona, maybe she feels it will help her convince Fox that she has an audience that will watch her program if she can show that “Vent” gets a lot of hits.
Personally, I think she is out of her depth when it comes to being a tv host (as opposed to everything else she does?), but I can’t rule out that she won’t get her own tv show, or at the very least, be part of a show where she is a regular (sort of like a McCloughlin Group).
Comment by Tommykey — April 29, 2006 @ 2:03 pm
I know for a FACT that Fox News will never let Malkin do anything except guest on the odd program. That’s it. She sucks, and the folks there know it all too well.
Comment by NeoCon — April 30, 2006 @ 5:03 am