This is one I can't pin down, which is unusual.  I think the problem is the sheer volumn of work MacDonald has churned out in the past few years makes it almost impossible to do a true web search on her.  Every instinct I have tells me she's not 'kosher' but I can't prove it.  Anyone as prolifically anti-hispanic and as seriously racist as MacDonald has something in a closet somewhere.  The problem is her past is buried so deeply I can't crack it.  She's squeeky clean, so far.  But, someone who is cited so much by Malkin, Vdare, Steven Sailor, Sam Francis, American Resistance, American Renaissance, etc. isn't a saint. I was finally able to prove she is playing fast and lose with the facts and sourcing on Hispanic culture.  Frankly, in my humble opinion, she is probably one of the worst, most biased anti-hispanic source out there today. 

When dealing with anything about immigration, the first thing a person needs to know is to look beyond the hype and investigate the credentials of the author of a piece.  Heather MacDonald is no exception.  In NRO she has an extremely biased, one sided kill piece about the Hispanic family.  She's an expert, right?  Well, Vdare has her as part of the libertarian (a kicker right there) Manhattan Institute. And a Source Watch profile reveals nothing that could point to MacDonald's racism against Hispanics.  MacDonald is one of the promoters of the racist, Hispanic Family Values (check out this Vdare which parrots her).  I know she is using the racist Myth of Hispanic Family Values from American Resistance, but I can't prove it.

(Note:  The thing that gets me about libertarians and illegal immigration - Libertarians are allegedly for limited government - as little as possible - but the anti-immigration stance many of them take is the ultimate Big Brother.  You can't have it both ways.  A true libertarian would let these guys come and go over the border and live and let live.  As it is, they are some of the biggest promoters of Draconian immigration laws.  Go figure.  I'm not bright enough.)

From her profile on One People's Project (which is quite liberal, but the person doing it is an ex-hate monger so I give him a break) "...A non-practicing lawyer fresh from stints at the EPA and as a clerk for a Judge Stephen Reinhardt in California, Heather MacDonald moved to the city from Los Angeles in 1987 and jumped into the racial tensions going on there at the time. She found herself at a conservative think tank called the Manhattan Institute (MI) This lovely place was founded by former CIA director William Casey and in the past was funded by far right eugenics advocates such as the Pioneer Fund and others, Many of those other backers also backed Hitler's rise to power. One of them, Chase Bank, has publicly apologized for its support of Hitler, but where today's hate politics are concerned, MI does not seem so forgiving. They have sponsored eugenics projects, most notably the pro-eugenics book The Bell Curve, a best-selling book that proposed the idea that blacks are mentally inferior. On one website, it is noted that while the Manhattan Institute does not publicly advocate mass extermination or mass relocation of minorities the policies it does promote are mostly about targeting black and Latino inner city populations in such a way as to make relocation an attractive option and elimination a day to day reality. ..."

Her immigration numbers are skewed, but you can't pin her down. The closest I can get is this AZ Central article.   "...Nearly two dozen organization members handed lawmakers two-page documents that they called the "real facts." Richard White, president of the organization, called Pearce's rhetoric a smear campaign against "a whole people that tends to create division and fear."The purpose is to advance a political agenda of hard-line immigration reforms by instilling fear in the public and pressure among lawmakers to act, White said."I hope the public will recognize the song and dance for what it is," he said.Statistics can be slippery ground, and even the organization's fact sheet didn't compare apples to apples as, in one instance, Pearce cited statistics on federal prisoners and the Interfaith Network responded with statistics on prisoners in state facilities.Pearce has said that one-third of federal prisoners are illegal. The Network points out that fewer than 12 percent of those incarcerated in state prisons are Mexican nationals.The Republic found that nearly 28 percent of those incarcerated in federal prisons are not U.S. citizens, according to the Federal Bureau of Prison Statistics. That's 5 percentage points short of a third and doesn't take into account foreign-born residents who are in the country legally. Pearce, R-Mesa, said he got the statistic from CNN. Pearce also was called on a statistic that said 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide in Los Angeles target illegal immigrants.But officers at the LA Police Department and Sheriff's Office say they aren't sure how that fact was deduced."I don't know where those come from," said Lt. Paul Vernon, who handles public information with the LAPD. Much like in Phoenix, officers do not check immigration status. Neither LA nor Phoenix police departments track the number of illegal immigrants involved in crimes, officials said. The statistic appears to have originated with Heather MacDonald, who is listed as a scholar with the Manhattan Institute in New York. MacDonald could not be reached for comment on Monday."

And debunking MacDonald's stats on illegals, CA, crime, and gangs from the LA Times. 

"Just the Facts-- UPDATED

Author Greg Robinsonmakes an interesting point about Malkin that can be applied to many of the RINO conservatives of the extreme right. "Also, Malkin, unlike all other writers I have seen, deliberately impugns the motives of those who disagree with her. Although she sets herself up as a disinterested seeker for truth with an open mind, she is gratuitously nasty towards all others: "Unlike many others who have published on this subject, I have no vested interests: I am not an evacuee, internee, or family member thereof. I am not an attorney who has represented evacuees or internees demanding redress for their long-held grievances. I am not a professor whose tenure relies on regurgitating academic orthodoxy about this episode in American history." Well, I am none of these things, apart perhaps from being a professor, and I was not even that when I researched and wrote my book. I am mindful, however, of the wise counsel of Sidney Hook, who in his "Ethics of Controversy" reminded people "[b]efore impugning an opponent's motives, even when they legitimately may be impugned, answer his arguments." Since there is a great deal to criticize in Malkin's arguments from a logical and historical point of view, I will start by focusing on that."  Robinson has picked up on a problem with the entire 'genera' of Malkin-Coulter type RINO Conservatives.  They do the impugning thing about motives but never bother ansering the criticism.

Once upon a time (2001) Malkin wrote this piece about Senator Robert Byrd.  Please read it carefully.  "If this ex-Klansman were a conservative Republican, he would never hear the end of his sordid past. "Ex-Klansman who opposed civil rights and black justices" would appear in every reference to Sen. Byrd. And even the "ex-" would be in doubt. Maxine Waters and Ralph Neas and Julianne Malveaux and Al Sharpton and all the other left-wing bloodhounds who sniff racism in every crevice of American life would be barking up a storm over Sen. Byrd's latest fulminations. Instead, the attack dogs are busy decrying latent racial bigotry where it doesn't exist, while the real thing roams wild and free in their own political backyard." Yet by her very association with certain anti-immigration and anti-Hispanic personalities, Malkin has become 'the enemy'. But, the problem is no one seems to care.

"It is always funny when anti-immigrant activists try to declare they are not racist in their anti-immigrant activities, or that they would never associate with anyone that is. It is always funny, because if that was the case, they would not have all that many people within their circles. The new stunt is to find as many black people that they can to join them in protests to show the world that they are not the racist ignoramuses people like us peg them to be. Sure, Latinos are a plus, but since many blacks have expressed their own hatred of Mexicans, they are easier to recruit. It will work except for one thing: the white supremacists are still within their ranks, and that makes for a little comedy." FromOne People's Project. We should also note this is a very liberal web site.  But, the truth is the truth and intellectually honest conservatives should be able to recognize the truth and accept it. 

Michelle Malkin presents a real conundrum.  On one hand she is a very patriotic American, relentless in her champion of our military and the war on terror.  She is merciless as she attacks liberal hacks who constantly seek to devalue the war, the military, and truly harm us with their foolish anticts.  But there is also a Michelle Malkin who is a ruthless opponent of immigration, someone who associates with known racists, white supremacists, naturists, separatists, and those who even are less savory - all in an attempt to cleanse the nation of illegal immigrants.

One can understand her dislike of the Japanese culture when one considers her family came out of the Philippines after World War II, and they truly saw some nasty stuff, but that should make a person less racist, not more.  Her anti-immigration associates are truly anti-Hispanic bigots.  Why would a person like Malkin associate with them? 

Some of the answers can be found in a series of essays by Muller and Robinson on Is That Legal.  They discuss the inaccuracies of Malkin's 2004 In Defense of Internment.  The question is does Malking have the courage to go where none of us in this politically correct world fear to go or is she just plain racist?  Or is she intellectually dishonest?  Maybe, as Muller and Robinson show, it is a combination of the three.

The following is excerpted from their essays:

"...A big part of what drove Michelle to write this book was her disgust with people on the left who have never met an antiterrorism policy they like, and who have trotted out the scary specter of the incarceration of Japanese Americans at every opportunity...Now I hasten to add that Michelle is also slaying dragons of her own creation. She's outraged, she says (see pages 95-99), at all of the people who liken the War Relocation Authority's "Relocation Centers" for Japanese Americans to Nazi death camps by naming them with the historically accurate term "concentration camps." (That's what FDR himself called them — see the quotation from FDR on page 21 of Michelle's book.)...I don't have the faintest idea who Michelle is talking about here. I know of no one who compares Manzanar to Auschwitz, and Michelle's book doesn't cite anyone who does so... But Michelle does exactly the same thing, rejecting the historically authentic term "concentration camp" while insisting on using the historically authentic but grossly misleading term "evacuation." (People are "evacuated" in order to protect them from a threat, such as a hurricane or a forest fire. Japanese Americans were evicted from their homes, not evacuated.)...If in fact there were people who compared this country's camps for Japanese Americans to Nazi Germany's death camps, I would certainly understand Michelle's angry desire to set the record straight. My grandfather was in Buchenwald,** and I'd be as outraged as anyone--probably more outraged than most--by the suggestion that this government ran places like that. But--to foreshadow my next post on this topic--the way to counter a comparison of Manzanar to Buchenwald is to describe Manzanar carefully. It is not to compare Manzanar to a Boy Scout Camp, which Michelle comes very close to doing. ...**I note that Michelle has set up an "errata" page for the book. Here's one. On page 99, she says that "[h]istorians who compare the American relocation camps to Dachau and Bergen-Belsen will be hard-pressed to find a single European Jew who ... was given permission to leave ... a Nazi death camp." Not so. Nearly all of the German and Austrian Jews (like my grandfather) who were seized at Kristallnacht and taken to Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen in early November of 1938 were released over the following several months. Those who could not get visas out of Germany and Austria were later recaptured and killed (like my great uncle Leopold). But Nazi Germany's policy from the mid- to late 1930s was to "encourage" (by which I mean terrorize) Jews into leaving the country. You can read more about this episode here if you're interested....

Robinson also wrote, "Malkin thus follows in the paranoid style of Lillian Baker, the most important internment denier, whose gift to posterity, "The Concentration Camp Conspiracy," likewise charges an immense conspiracy on the part of Japanese Americans to defraud the government and distort history. To be fair, Malkin does not go as far as Baker in claiming that the camps were pleasant places or that the guard towers were for the inmates' protection. Still, her central premise is that the government acted justly in establishing camps to which Japanese Americans were "free to move elsewhere (initially)" "free to leave" and " free to enter". This is a serious distortion. Let us break down her comments....She might have gone further, in order to defend the government, to point out that the War Relocation Authority did initially intend to place Japanese Americans in communities outside the West Coast, but that when WRA Director Milton Eisenhower visited a Western Governor's conference, the rabid anti-Japanese sentiment he experienced forced him to shelve his plans and prepare for confinement for the duration. Rather, Ms. Malkin's talent for overkill shows itself in her insistence that hostility from inland Japanese-Americans was a significant factor in striking fear in the hearts of the West Coasters."

Maybe Malkin is not as accurate as we think she is.  

Let's start at the begining.  Malkin is the daughter of immigrants.  An aspiring concert artist, she attracted the attentions of future husband Jesse Malkin while in college  A career in journalism was the result.  As her husband acquired position, Malkin's writing style became nastier and nastier.   

From this 'liberal' profile, we learn the following:

"...Tying every issue to a leering swipe at the physical appearance, personal style or intimate life of a prominent figure — especially those with a high sex-appeal quotient — was becoming Malkin's trademark. It didn't matter that the subject had done nothing to invite focus on her personal life. Even Elizabeth Dole didn't escape Malkin's radar. In “Is Bush a Liddy Dole Republican?” (Mar. 17, 2000) Malkin snipes, “She's baaaack. Elizabeth Dole has been buffed, polished, and pulled off the Republican trophy shelf by Texas Gov. George W. Bush in a lame attempt to attract liberal women voters,”. Malkin even seemed to hint at a bit of sexual chemistry between Dole and Bush. “She cooed that Bush was ‘my kind of conservative.’” She sexualizes Dole with the gratuitous observation: “The woman nicknamed ‘Sugar Lips’ has been wading inside the Beltway for decades, like a giddy queen bee in a bottomless pot of taxpayer-subsidized honey....”

"...Malkin was becoming skilled at supplying back-door titillation to those who liked to heap righteous indignation on supposed immorality while leering at its sexiest exponents. Some observers thought Malkin was out to make herself an object of right-wing titillation. For her column's headshot she cultivated a put-together look that included parted lips coated with red lipstick, big wind-blown hair and a red blouse unbuttoned to expose a prominent V of flesh..."

Anyone reading this piece finds uncomfortable racial references.  The only possible explanation is that Malkin is possibly a true racist, but wraps it in red, white, and blue.  She does have a razor sharp pen, as does Ann Coulter. "Malkin's success wasn't unprecedented. She had been following doggedly in the footsteps of another female columnist who had become wealthy as a rightwing attack dog. Since the mid-1990s the radical right's top poster girl had been the forty-something Ann Coulter, a onetime corporate lawyer with a cruel eye, firm grasp of wingnut psychology and enough vampish blonde hair to pass for telegenic among older, more conservative audiences. Coulter had cut her teeth on the Clintons and terrorized politicians with names like “pimp”, “gigolo” and “poodle”. Her columns were studies in hyperbole. “Eight More Thomases!”, “Attack France!” and “Affirmative Action for Osama” are typical titles. Her major appeal for the far right is revealed by the photos covering the dust jackets of her four best-selling books: big blonde hair, little black leather outfits, pancake makeup. Coulter's restraint was diminishing in inverse proportion to her success. Recently, even publishers and networks positioned for right-wing audiences have been forced to ban her from time to time to keep from losing advertisers." Fact is, they may be, in part, responsible for the new incivility that has taken over the far right. And, FYI, Malkin gets $10,000 a pop for her appearences as an 'expert' for various TV appearences.

And so we have her evolution as an extreme anti-immigration personality who really doesn't care who she 'shacks up' with as long as she is heard. "...Foremost among them are foreigners entering the U.S. The rights granted illegal immigrants became a Malkin pet peeve. In a bit of serendipitous timing, on the day before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack, her column (“The end of American citizenship”, Sep. 10, 2001) lashed out at the ease with which some illegal immigrants were allowed to become legal residents and citizens. It was criticizing the federal government's amnesty program for illegal migrant workers from Mexico, but its dire tone seemed borne out the very next day by the 9/11 terrorist attacks..."  One is left with the disturbing possiblity that all of this is done for the money.  Or one is left with the even more disturbing possibility that the Malkins are true racists wrapped in patriotic clothing.  I would post excerpts from that article, but I find it extremely uncomfortable.  One also wonders if we arent' dealing with a woman who isn't 'all there'.  Something is seriously wrong here.  This woman is not flying on all thrusters.

And then there is her husband Jesse Malkin. There are allagations that he is 'ghost blogging' for Michelle.  And there are also allegations of an explosive temper, and the possibility of an alleged assault of a student writing for a college newspaper.

Then there is Malkinwatch that keeps track of Michelle and Jesse.

So let's get started on the anti-Hispanic twist to Malkin, who decries Robert Byrd for being a member of the KKK.

"Aztlan is a long-held notion among Mexico's intellectual elite and political class, which asserts that the American southwest rightly belongs to Mexico. Advocates believe the reclamation (or reconquista) of Aztlan will occur through sheer demographic force. If the rallies across the country are any indication, reconquista is already complete." Jewish World Review.  Alex Koppelman of Dragonfire, responds to her 'breathless' rantings, which have absolutely no reality behind them.  "Now, I understand that the fact that racists are the only ones to discuss reconquista and Aztlan in the same tones as Malkin doesn’t necessarily make her a racist. But as if speaking in the same coded language as the racists wasn’t enough, Malkin makes no bones about allying herself with organizations that expound profoundly racist ideologies.

Organizations like VDARE, listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Malkin’s columns are reprinted on VDARE’s website, and VDARE contributor Juan Mann is one of the principal contributors to the immigration blog on Malkin’s own site. Mann himself was propagating the reconquista myth in a column for VDARE Monday, writing that “An estimated 500,000 reconquistas took to the streets in Los Angeles over the past weekend to demand illegal alien amnesty.”

Again, no evidence was presented to prove that the 500,000 protesters were all reconquistas, or even that a majority were. (Malkin’s evidence was the quote of a single 16-year-old student who simply said, “This is unjust. This land used to belong to us and now they're trying to kick us out.”)

But that’s hardly out of character for VDARE, which as of press time Wednesday featured on its front page along with Malkin’s column an article by J. Phillippe Rushton approvingly reviewing a new book purporting to show racial differences in IQ — a book that claims the average IQ of sub-Saharan Africans is 67, that is, below the commonly accepted standard for mental retardation.

So here’s the question: Given her use of racist code language, given her spreading of a myth propagated otherwise b