A Study In Contrasts

On the one hand....

British and American newspapers published photos Friday showing an imprisoned Saddam Hussein clad only in his underwear and washing his laundry, prompting an angry U.S. military to launch an investigation and the Red Cross to say the pictures may violate the Geneva Conventions.

Britain's The Sun and the New York Post said the photos were provided by a U.S. military official they did not identify. The photos angered the U.S. military, which issued a condemnation rare for its immediacy.

Saddam's chief lawyer, Ziad al-Khasawneh, said his legal team would sue The Sun because the photos represent "an insult to humanity, Arabs and the Iraqi people."

"It is clear that the pictures were taken inside the prison, which means that American soldiers have leaked the pictures," he said by telephone from Amman, Jordan. "We will sue the newspaper and everyone who helped in showing these pictures."

He said the photos were part "of a comprehensive war against the Islamic and Arab nations" that included the abuse at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison and allegations by Newsweek, which were later retracted, about Quran desecration at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

...but on the other hand...

MoveOn.org's recent display of a graphic depicting the Capitol Building being blown up was rightfully criticized by the Republican Party. RNC Communications Director, Brian Jones, said in a statement, "MoveOn.org's vulgar depiction of a violent attack on the Capitol - a building that symbolizes our democracy - is beyond the pale of acceptable political discourse. Democrats know Senator Frist's efforts are intended to restore Senate tradition by granting highly qualified judicial nominees the vote they deserve and have received for the past 214 years. It's sad that the Democrats and their third party allies would choose to play on Americans' fears instead of engaging
in constructive political debate."

And what was MoveOn.org's Eli Pariser response: "Lighten up."

Hmmm; a newspaper or two runs pics of a genocidal dictator in his underwear and the world comes to end, but left-wing extremists metaphorically smear the Majority Leader of the United States Senate as a mass-murdering terrorist, and we're taking it too seriously.

Incidentally, guess which "news outlet" is refusing to publish Saddam in his skivvies? (Hint: It isn't Newsweek.)

This is fun - let's do another!

On the one hand....

Remember back when Air America host Randi Rhodes told her little joke about shooting the President of the United States? A big belly-laugh for our leftwing friends that was; it was, in the eyes of the left, just a harmless joke...and the left was outraged when the conservative side of the aisle demanded a Secret Service investigation on the theory that, hey, it's about killing the President. With the number or raving nutters out there already primed for outrages, we certainly didn't need anyone even making jokes about it.

...and, on the other hand...

Liberal organizations and bloggers are in overdrive, after nationally syndicated, conservative talk show host Glenn Beck was said to have threatened Michael Moore's life. It's sparked a write-in and telephone campaign to get Beck off the air, via his syndicator, complaints to the FCC and calls for his arrest.

Don't these lefties have a very selective sense of outrage?....Now they're hopping mad, from blogs to lefty activism sites, furious that Beck isn't the subject of a police investigation.

Is Michael Moore's life really more valuable than the President's?

It would seem that the Left can dish it out but thinks itself entitled by divine right to blanket exemption from any and all retaliation.

Mr. Maloney has some good perspective to offer on this particular one-way street:

Unlike the left, conservatives don't feel the need to stand by everything done or said by people who claim to subscribe to the movement. In the Rhodes case, clearly there should have been more outrage from the left, but mostly they covered for her. Conservatives don't want to get into that habit, either.

[However, t]he left invented this "gotcha game"...It really began with years of unsuccessful efforts to remove Rush Limbaugh from the airwaves, from advertiser boycotts, to Congressional efforts to reinstate the FCC's former Fairness Doctrine, known on Capitol Hill as "Hush Rush" legislation.

A radio industry discussion of the matter is found here.

So far, conservatives seem to be unaware of the movement against Beck, with little or no discussion about it on right-leaning sites so far. Ignoring it would be foolish.

Put another way, the "gotcha game" is multi-layered, and the Left will not pass up a single opportunity to "get" the smallest of rightie "fry."

This speaks to the necessity, first and foremost, to refrain from saying stupid things ourselves. But it also means standing by our fellows when they fall off the verbal propriety bandwagon.

As it is written, "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." But all the libs are interested in is extracting our "flesh" - one pound at a time.