In other surprising news, water found to be 'wet'

If it's a day that ends with a "Y" Michelle Malkin must be outraged about something.

Right-wing nutjob Michelle Malkin is upset that Antonia Zerbisais made a joke about someone, maybe even Dick Cheney, shooting her.

Not that she needs me to defend her, in fact it's like a Boy Scout troop acting as bodyguards to the SAS, but the Divine Ms. Z has apparently fallen afoul of the conservative outrage machine as the poster girl for the unhinged has released her flying monkeys. (read the hilarious comments)
Apparently, IOKIYAR rules are still in effect. It's okay for Canada's Lowest Common Dominatrix and the rest of the right wing shriekosphere on both sides of the border to joke about or actually call for the death of various journalist, politicians and massive numbers of brown or brownish people and their sympathizers, but if a Canadian journalist Twitters a bit of wordplay on Marxists and marksmen and suggests a rabid Pomeranian of the Right be sent hunting with Dick Cheney, well that's a hate crime and she's worse than Hitler and Stalin combined.
And naturally, the first response of the champion of rugged individualism and freedom when someone makes a mean joke about her is to run crying to the principal. Typical. I'm surprised we haven't yet been informed of what kind of countertops grace the Zerbisais' household.

Doubtless the wingnuts will shriek and jump up and down and hold their breath until they get what they want, and in the end La Zerb will probably have to make a pro forma apology of some sort. She should not, and her employer should not bend to the histrionics of the wingnut outrage machine. The Right should grow a skin and learn to take a fraction of what they dish out.

Stephen Taylor's original post linked above has it about right - it was a dumb thing to say, but it was said in an off-the-cuff forum (Twitter) not in her newspaper column, it was obviously a joke and not some sinister call for Malkin to be assasinated, and last time I checked people in both Canada and the United States had a right to free speech.

If the right feel that Zerbisais should apologize or be fired for a lame Twitter joke about wishing Dick Cheney would shoot Michelle Malkin, consistency demands that they first insist that Ann Coulter be punished in some fashion for wishing in syndicated print (and repeating it endlessly on television) that Tim McVeigh had blown up the New York Times building.

Otherwise, they should STFU