Michelle Malkin caught quote-mining

Yet another right-winger spouts bullshit regarding the trumped-up media frenzy surrounding Obama's planned health care reform: blogger Michelle Malkin has been caught quote-mining.

First, in relation to all those ridiculous disruptions from ignorant loudmouthed yahoos that keep going off in those town hall meetings and debates around the country, she brings up a quote used by Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer in a recent USA Today op-ed:

Now, Democrats are calling vocal opponents of Obamacare unpatriotic: “Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American.”

Then, she brings up a Hillary Clinton quote from 2003:

I invoke Hillary Clinton from 2003:

HRC: “I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you’re not patriotic. We should stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration.”

Sounds rather damning at a glance – until you read the full Pelosi and Hoyer quote in its proper context:

These tactics have included hanging in effigy one Democratic member of Congress in Maryland and protesters holding a sign displaying a tombstone with the name of another congressman in Texas, where protesters also shouted "Just say no!" drowning out those who wanted to hold a substantive discussion.

These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views -- but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task for decades.

What's blatantly clear is that whilst Hillary Clinton was yelling against morons and right-wingers who constantly tried to crush criticism of the O-So-Holy Bush Administration and kept labeling dissenters and critics as "unpatriotic" and even "traitors" in some instances, the Pelosi-Hoyer op-ed was in reference to the aforementioned clueless loudmouthed hillbillies who keep disrupting town hall meetings across the country with their angry rants, drowning out the other side's calm and sensible responses with their pure outrage at the perceived threat of "losing their America".

It's an utterly ridiculous and dishonest comparison to make, and Malkin knows this full well. Yet another liar caught red-handed trying to discredit Obama and his administration. Yeah, we're all shocked, here.

(via Dispatches From the Culture Wars)