David Neiwert: Soft-pedaling the internment

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

It's not surprising, really, that Michelle Malkin's fraudulent thesis defending the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II has found been circulating among the extremist right. After all, that's how right-wing transmitters work: she treads rather easily among the extremist ideologues of the far right despite maintaining a mainstream pose.

Likewise, it's not a big surprise to see her thesis spreading to more ostensibly "mainstream" right mouthpieces. The latest instance is Tony Blankley's excerpt from his new book, The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations?, citing a pro-internment argument straight out of Malkin's text -- not to mention Lt. Gen DeWitt's:

A total of 25,655 noncitizens living in the United States were interned or deported during the war years because of their ethnicity or nationality, rather than their words or conduct. They included 11,229 Japanese, 10,905 Germans, 3,278 Italians, 52 Hungarians, 25 Romanians, five Bulgarians and 161 other foreign nationals.