After Michelle Obama’s homage to suburban Mom dances on Jimmy Fallon on Friday night, Michelle Malkin responded with this on Sunday. You don’t have to watch it, because for the most part it’s painful:
Malkin’s response time is great perfect – her video was up before the original had a chance at Monday morning virality (which was a lock because it was actually kind of funny). That’s good, but it’s where the good stops; Malkin’s video is kind of lame.
[Note: It’s still better than my video, which is linked here. Oh, that’s right, I didn’t make a video. Duly noted. Back to the cheap shots…]
The problem largely stems from the word “liberal” in Malkin’s title. While factually accurate, it raises the immediate flag that this is speaking only to a political audience, the kind that will descend on the National Harbor for CPAC in just a few weeks. There’s nothing wrong with rallying the troops, but Malkin can probably do better.
“Better” might be a mock video response that substitutes the First Lady for the President himself, bringing Michelle Obama’s decidedly non-political and self-deprecating bit into contrast with her hyper-political, self-aggrandizing husband. It would definitely drop the political labels, focusing more on DC versus regular voters, rather than conservatives versus liberals. And it would have to emphasize humor more than scoring week debate points, because in videos like this funny is most important.
Malkin tallied over 65,000 views at press time. That’s impressive, but if her audience wasn’t so narrow, she might have tripled that. There’s nothing wrong with rallying the troops, but real advancement of center-right ideas isn’t going to come from overtly political videos that preach to the choir.
[Still better than my video.]
Jim Eltringham 