Forgive me if this has been diaried about -- I searched and didn't see anything.
Today, Michelle Malkin references a post by blogger Andy Ostroy to lead into a "Mexicans are invading and we're all going to die" rant. On the surface, it seems like a fairly respectful reference (well, respectful given who's saying it...), with no overt or implied insult.
Andy Ostroy has posted a poignant message about his wife, Adrienne Shelly, whose accused murderer, illegal alien day laborer Diego Pillco, reportedly tried to cover up the crime by faking a suicide scene.
However, by looking at the context of who she's referencing and what he stands for, it all takes on a very ugly hue.
On 11/01, his wife, Adrienne Shelly (actress of stage and screen, most-remembered for her role in Hal Hartley's films including
Trust and
The Unbelievable Truth) was murdered in their home. Initially, it appeared to be a suicide, but investigations led to the arrest of Diego Pillco for her murder. She leaves behind a young daughter and, as mentioned above, her husband Andy Ostroy. Why, then, does Malkin's use of his blog posting prove to be so ugly, despite the relatively benign wording of her lead-in?
See, Andy Ostroy is a blogger who also co-hosts a live call-in show on Manhattan cable. The header on his blog reads:
The Ostroy Report is a fresh, aggressive answer to the powerful Right Wing spin machine. We take on Bush, the Republican Party and the conservative media. Our mission is to help Democrats regain the White House and Congress.
Malkin is, essentially, quietly sending her readers over to a liberal blog to spout off about how it's the liberals' fault (and, by extension, the husband himself) and (to use Malkins' words) "the open-borders RNC" that she was murdered, leaving comments like this:
Yes it is a personal tragedy, but the Ostrich-like liberals are the creators of the chain-of-events that led to this tragedy.
This is beyond the pale, and smells slightly of payback to someone who has written about Malkin in the past. Maybe I'm stretching with that. Maybe I'm being overly emotional about it. Maybe it's just her typical MO. But this isn't the first time she's used this tragedy as a jumping-off point to lambast "spineless" Republicans who are "preparing to cut and run at the border and hand over a mass illegal alien amnesty to the Dems," while sending readers over to his site. She claims in this earlier post that he is "a liberal blogger whom I've linked and had cordial communications with in the past, despite heated political differences," even though she has only mentioned him on her site once before.
I don't really have much of a point with this, other than outrage. As a huge movie buff, I was a fan of Shelly's and appreciated her work. As a liberal, I read Ostroy's blog fairly regularly and appreciated his work. And to see someone like Malkin latch onto her death for her own selfish reasons, and to seemingly vindictively link to Ostroy's blog (with the unspoken irony of it being a liberal blogger's wife fueling the fire)...well, it disgusts me.
So I vent.