Michelle Malkin takes Prof. Steve Bainbridge to task today for referring to the minutemen as follows:

In contrast to Schwarzenegger, President Bush has aptly referred to these nuts as “vigilantes.”

UPDATE: Bainbridge is backing off. Or maybe elaborating. Or maybe squirming?

The top definition of vigilante kicked up by Google is “a person who tries in an unofficial way to prevent crime, or to catch and punish someone who has committed a crime, especially because they do not think that official organizations, such as the police, are controlling crime effectively. Vigilantes usually join together to form groups.” Granted, the Minutemen aren’t meting out summary justice (to date), but surely they intend for the presence to intimidate and deter border crossings, just as a cop on the beat deters crime. In other words, isn’t trying “in an unofficial way to prevent” border crossings exactly what the Minutemen do? So what the heck else should we call them? The safety patrol?

How about “nuts“? :-)

UPDATE 2: It looks like some other bloggers aren’t buying Prof. Bainbridge’s reasoning.

Antimedia:

Carried to its logical conclusion, the good professor’s reasoning is that Latinos won’t vote for someone who opposes illegal immigration and that they will assume that if you don’t expressly disavow racists and “nativists” (whatever the heck that is) you approve of them.

Never mind that Latinos were among the Minutemen that participated in the Arizona project recently. Bainbridge has decided to insult all Latinos by pidgeon-holing them in the self-same way as the Democrats do. Is it too much to ask to expect that at least some Latinos will be opposed to illegal immigration and understand fully what a pox it is on our nation?

Xrlq:

Rather than admit he was wrong, take his lumps and move on, however, he ignores established dictionaries and instead cites some random Googlecrap that defines vigilantism broadly enough to include every neighborhood watch program in the country. Sorry, not buying it.