Left-Wing Columnist Heather Mallick's "Humor": Comparing Palin to Porn Actress
Times reporter Ian Austen might want to get his sense of humor checked out, based on his reading of the story of Canadian left-wing feminist columnist Heather Mallick, who got in trouble for a vulgar anti-Sarah Palin column - one which Austen and a Times headline writer found "humorous."
From Austen's Monday Business story, "Boss Is Not Amused After Columnist's Humor Brings a Retort From Fox News."
Heather Mallick, an opinion columnist for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Web site, is known for her use of humorous exaggeration. But last week after removing a column by Ms. Mallick, which said that Gov. Sarah Palin has "a toned-down version of the porn actress look" and suggested that Republican men were sexually inadequate, the government-owned CBC ruled that its opinion writers had to stick to the facts even when they were joking around.
Although the broadcaster's Web site, www.cbcnews.ca, has relatively few readers in the United States, Ms. Mallick's comments became an issue last month on the Fox News Channel, which, because of Canadian cable TV rules that limit its distribution, has relatively few viewers in Canada. Greta Van Susteren, the host of "On the Record," condemned the column as "beyond vicious" and repeatedly referred to Ms. Mallick as "a pig." A right-of-center columnist for The National Post, of Toronto, also criticized the column.
Mallick defended herself and blamed Fox News:
In an e-mail message, Ms. Mallick said she believed that the complaints had been "orchestrated" by Fox News and came largely from Americans.
"My problem is that I have to write with a certain kind of reader in mind, and that person is always going to be my vision of an intelligent Canadian," Ms. Mallick said. "I don't write for Fox viewers."
Mallick had a different take in a Monday posting on her website, saying that the ballhad begunrolling before Fox got involved:
Extremist right-wingers in the U.S. apparently read CBCNews.ca, and within days of my column's appearance, hundreds of e-mails from Americans began landing on my personal website. Then Fox News took up the cause and it got bigger and worse, not like a rolling stone, more like a dung beetle having a field day.
The Times reporter and headline writer seemed to agree that Fox News fans simply don't understand her sense of humor. Evidently the Times has a more...attenuated sense of humor than does Times Watch; a brief perusal of Mallick's columnsreveals nothing but standard-issue left-wing boilerplate, enlivened by cheap anti-Americanism, which is almost by definition bereft of humor. Unless you consider comparing "Republican free-market rule" to the upside-down corpse of Benito Mussolini chuckle-worthy.
