#8: Michelle Malkin
It's possible that the only reason Bill O'Reilly has been able to keep his nose clean (by FOX News standards) all this time is that he's always had a devoted team of lunatics upon whom he could always depend.
One of them, Michelle Malkin, also eventually proved too crazy and unhinged even for FOX News.
Or, more accurately, FOX News proved too grounded and accountable for Michelle Malkin. Malkin announced that she would not return to "The O'Reilly Factor" in 2007, allegedly because FOX News had mishandled a dispute over "derogatory statements" made by Geraldo Rivera
Rivera had said of Malkin in a Boston Globe interview that she "-is the most vile, hateful commentator I've ever met in my life. She actually believes that neighbors should start snitching out neighbors, and we should be deporting people."
This is hardly derogatory, nor is it a fabrication. Malkin actually wrote an entire book in which she suggested exactly that.
In 2004, Malkin wrote "In Defense of Internment: The Case for 'Racial Profiling' in World War II and the War on Terror", in which she praised the U.S. government for interning over one hundred thousand Japanese Americans in prison camps during World War II and argued that the same should be done to Americans of Arab or Muslim descent today.
As many liberal commentators like Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann were quick to point out, Malkin is of Philippine descent, and therefore is very liable to get lumped in with the rest of the Muslim community by the very right-wing extremists to whom she was pandering.
Malkin also came severely unhinged during the fallout for Don Imus. Instead of commenting on Imus' comments, Malkin instead started ranting about "Al Sharpton and the race hustlers."
Her next order of business was to find proof of a "double standard" by pointing out that the lyrics of rap songs were just as vulgar as Imus' comments about the basketball team.
Evidently, nobody ever told Malkin that two wrongs do not make a right.
There were also two problem's with Malkin dragging Sharpton into this.
- Sharpton had been equally critical of vulgar hip-hop lyrics and stressed that they should be held just as accountable as Don Imus had been.
- Al Sharpton did not fly out of the woodwork and start ranting like Malkin implied. He only offered his opinion after he was approached and asked for it.
The network that had approached him for comment was FOX News. The same network for which Malkin was commentating at the time.
To date, Malkin's only redeeming quality is the hilariously appropriate name for the website she founded after her split from FOX News:
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