Heather Mallick is a Poo-poo Head

As is now well known, Heather Mallick posted a childishly malicious attack against Sarah Palin on Mallick’s CBC sponsored blog-site. I generally don’t like ad hominem attacks at all – whether they come from the left or right of the political spectrum, but I found Mallick’s comments about Governor Palin to be especially mean and distasteful.

---

Ad hominem attacks are nothing new – especially in political circles, and they will be with us for the foreseeable future. That being the case, it behooves us to better understand what they are. Ad hominem means “against the person” and is a type of fallacious (illogical) argument that attacks a person instead of the real issues. It’s a type of reasoning that says, “I can’t attack your logic, so I’ll attack the way you look, sound, and live – I’ll attack you.” A few of Mallick’s ad hominem comments will suffice to show the tenor of her article: “…she [Palin] isn’t even female really.” “Palin has a toned-down version of the porn actress look…” “Palin [is] vicious and profoundly dishonest.” “[Palin adds] nothing to the ticket that the Republicans didn't already have sewn up, the white trash vote.” And so on, ad nauseam. Mallick’s rant against Governor Palin is close to being a parody of an ad hominem attack, and is almost funny in its excess. Almost. If Mallick’s article had appeared in some extreme left-wing blog-site I’d have said, “Everyone’s entitled to their opinion,” and let it go. But her article wasn’t relegated to some fringe-element website – it was published under the auspices of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and that is disturbing. That the publicly funded (your tax dollars at work) CBC would publish trash like Mallick’s article is indefensible. It doesn’t matter which political candidate we endorse, we should find mean-spirited, vulgar, vitriolic slander to be objectionable, if not repulsive. The CBC should be fostering a national consciousness of fair play and tolerance, instead of propagating such venomous propaganda. No doubt the CBC explains away Mallick’s comments under the banners of “thought provoking” and “controversial.” The CBC might as well call Nazi Joseph Goebbels’ efforts “thought provoking” and “controversial.” That the CBC has chosen to infect others with this type of inflammatory soul-sickness is troubling indeed. I watched Canadian journalist David Warren offer his comments about Mallick’s article, when he appeared on Fox News. Mr. Warren seemed to be “straddling the fence” so adroitly, that by the end of the interview I wasn’t sure if he was condemning or condoning Mallick’s article. One point he made, however, I found very interesting. He said that Mallick’s article merely put into print what everyone says around the water-cooler at work. I would suggest that Mr. Warren start frequenting a different water-cooler. I find it hard to believe that all Canadians spend every free moment gossiping about how horrid and tacky Governor Palin is. Good God, what a myopic viewpoint! As we all know, the left-wing media (read that as almost all media) is startlingly blind to opinions that differ from their own. Their condescendingly antagonistic idea of “fair reporting” is laughable. If your opinions differ from theirs, then obviously “You just don’t get it,” -- either because of mental deficiency, bad genes, or a poor education. That a conservative person might actually have important, valid, and sensible things to say, “doesn’t compute” with them. So it doesn’t come as a shock to me that the CBC would pander to the extreme left-wing. But it should bother Canadians on both sides of the political fence. Using tax dollars to promote hate-mongering is not something most Canadians would condone – I suspect. Then again, maybe I’m hanging around the wrong water-cooler.