RISING TO HER LEVEL OF INCOMPETENCE. At her website, Michelle Malkin usually contents herself and her readers with regular blasts of hot, formless spume, like Old Faithful. Alas, in today's New York Post she has stepped above her pay grade, handling a compare-and-contrast structure in much the same way that General Mapache handles the gatling gun in The Wild Bunch: with enthusiasm but no sense of direction.

On the one hand, says Malkin, we have the appallingly young students of the famous Palestinian Jihad Mouse, who learn to celebrate war and suicide bombing; on the other, we have Western children, who are taught to value peace and harmony. If you are familiar with Malkin's work, you can see the problem already: Malkin doesn't know who to root for. She clearly despises the Palestinians, but she also seems to despise the milquetoast tots of the West:

...In New York City, one nursery school dragged 3-year-old toddlers to the office of Rep. Eliot Engel (D-Bronx/Westchester/Rockland), where they sang "It's a Small World" around a 12-foot "Tree of Peace."

The New York Press reported last week: "The handmade tree, crafted by 17 children during pre-school class time, was a statement against American troops remaining in Iraq, and a call to pursue peaceful paths to end all world conflicts...

The children's teacher, Valerie Coleman-Palansky, defended the stunt thusly: "I think it's appropriate for 3-year-olds to know that the world needs to be a peaceful place for everybody to live in and a safe place for everybody to live in."

Perhaps it's time for Coleman-Palansky to acquaint herself with the Palestinian Mickey Mouse. The chant of the little jihadists drowns out the Disneyfied reverie:

"What is your most lofty aspiration? Death for the sake of Allah!"

In case you imagine Malkin's objection is to the intrusion of politics into the classroom, she amplifies:

I have a pet peeve. It goes beyond the antiwar indoctrination rampant in American schools. At the playground and at the mall, I see 5-, 6- and 7-year-olds walking around with pacifiers in their mouths. Kids old enough to feed and dress themselves. Kids old enough to figure out the remote control and cell phone. Standing upright, suckling on brightly colored binkies.

Where are the parents to yank the rubber from their mouths and force them to grow up? When did child pacification usurp the responsibility of child-rearing?

So the problem isn't politics -- it's that American children are soft! They don't need binkies, they need a punch in the gut! They need Barney to stop prancing around like a Kansas City faggot and start barking motivational slogans like, "You had best unfuck yourself before I unscrew your head and shit down your neck."

In other words, they ought to be more like the kiddie killers of Palestine. Malkin probably doesn't even know she's making this point. That's why she and and her similarly unskilled colleagues should refrain from attempting to make points more complicated than "Hulk smash!" or "Pretty flower" until a slot opens up in the writing program at their local Sylvan Learning Center.