Malkin distorts Michelle Obama biography to attack her and her father as corrupt

August 01, 2009 8:02 pm ET — 128 Comments

In her new book, Culture of Corruption, conservative columnist Michelle Malkin claims that first lady Michelle Obama "was literally born into the Chicago political corruptocracy," suggesting that because her father was a volunteer precinct captain and held a city job, she was a party to cronyism and embraced the practice. In fact, the biography of Michelle Obama that Malkin cites to make this case actually argued that the first lady's experience in the "powerful political machine" of Richard J. Daley made her and her family "extremely cynical about politics and politicians" until they met "Barack [Obama], whose political career was pushed in part by a coalition of people who had grown up in opposition to Daley and whose goal was breaking the Machine."