Max Blumenthal, Scourge of Conservative Conferences

Daniel Treiman
The Jewish Daily Forward

Max Blumenthal is a party pooper.

Or, at least, you might feel that way if you were the organizer of a conservative conference and Blumenthal showed up with a camera.

The New York-based journalist is a Puffin Foundation writing fellow at the Nation Institute (which is affiliated with the venerable left-wing magazine of the same name) and a regular contributor to the Huffington Post. At 29, Blumenthal has covered the various strands of the conservative movement for an array of left-leaning publications.

But he has really made a name for himself with his videos.

Armed with a cameraman and a dry wit, Blumenthal has become an Internet favorite, offering up red meat to those looking to have their stereotypes of conservatives confirmed with video evidence.

Deadpanning his way through this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, Blumenthal cornered pundit Michelle Malkin, author of a recent book defending the World War II internment of Japanese-Americans, and asked her to autograph a photo of Manzanar, the famed internment camp. (She declined.) Later, before a packed auditorium, he asked right-wing fire-breather Ann Coulter: “As a proponent of the sanctity of marriage, can you explain why you’ve had three broken engagements and never been married?” The seven-minute video has been viewed more than 160,000 times on YouTube alone.

For his follow-up, “Generation Chickenhawk,” Blumenthal attended a conference for College Republicans. There, he surveyed the enthusiastic young supporters of the Iraq War, searching in vain for attendees who were eager to enlist.

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