[H/T Toby Toons for the image.]

This past week in the wake of the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords by Jared Lee Loughner (that killed six people and wounded nine others–including the congresswoman), the mainstream/liberal media instantly pounced on “the violent rhetoric” by Sarah Palin and the Tea Party as the cause of Loughner’s mad shooting spree. Oh, and they did this within half an hour of the victims being shot, before any of the facts of the case had come in. To be specific, the likes of Andrew Sullivan (he of “Trig Truther” fame), Markos Moulitsas, Matthew Yeglesias, Paul Krugman, The New York Times Editorial Board and just about everyone at MSNBC immediately implied that “right-wing rhetoric”, and specifically Sarah Palin, were accessories to this tragedy. In fact, Markos Moulitsas even went so far as to tweet out “Mission Accomplished Sarah Palin” immediately after the shooting, and blamed her based an obscure map that she had put out almost year ago on her Facebook page “targeting” certain districts for the 2010 election. To quote Alex Knepper, according to liberals, “Guns don’t kill people, Sarah Palin’s metaphors do”. (See an image of her Facebook map below.)

Except that it didn’t take conservative bloggers long to learn that the Democrats had put up a similar “target” map in 2009 (before Palin did) stating which Republicans they wanted to “target” for opposing the now infamous stimulus bill.

Furthermore, as Patterico points out Markos Moulitsas, himself, put a bulls-eye on Gifford’s district (because she’s a moderate Democrat).

Then, Michelle Malkin responded by cataloging all of the shockingly hateful and violent rhetoric towards Sarah Palin and John McCain courtesy of the Left–not to mention, she unearthed a plethora of leftist assassination fantasies about President Bush. (H/T Karl–be sure to read his excellent column.)

And finally, Bill O’Reilly swung into action by promptly calling out the left-wing charlatans participating in this hateful farce. Moreover, O’Reilly pointed out how Democrats have no problem using gun metaphors–and how Joe Manchin even shot the stimulus bill in an ad–and, that MSNBC is actually ground zero for hateful rhetoric. (Hat tip to Allahpundit for the video.)

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

["Oopsy daisies. Quick, quick--backtrack in the other direction! Let's now just denounce all heated rhetoric and free political speech."]

So now it’s official–court is in session and the verdict is in. According to public opinion polls, the MSM has “botched the coverage” of the Tuscon shooting by immediately and ignorantly blaming “right-wing rhetoric”. However, what’s even further evidence that the MSM has disgraced themselves with their coverage of the Arizona shooting, is that many liberal pundits are now calling out the MSM/liberal media for it’s repugnant coverage–not to mention, in his speech, President Obama wisely cautioned people against blaming “incivility” for the tragedy.

For instance, Jon Stewart, Jack Shafer of Slate, and T.A. Frank of The New Republic all blasted the liberal MSM meme of blaming “conservative rhetoric” for causing the Tuscon tragedy (T.A. Frank wrote that the MSM “botched the coverage”). Furthermore, Kirsten Powers came out with a column in The Daily Beast where she wrote that President Obama didn’t go far enough in his speech to “shut down the nonsense about how Sarah Palin or right-wing talkers caused the shooting.” Moreover, Democratic strategist Pat Caddell referred to Paul Krugman as….well, let’s just say a “sphincter” for writing that God-awful column where he blamed conservatives for the Tuscon murders (the column that O’Reilly easily debunked above). To be specific, Caddell said the following:

“People are dead, and the first thing they have to do is go to politics. No wonder the country hates the media.”

And finally, yesterday, Charles Blow (yeah, the guy that called minorities in theTea Party “a minstrel show”), wrote a column where he accused the Left of participating in “a witch hunt” after the Tuscon shooting spree.

So, now the question becomes, not, “Did the media botch the Arizona shooting?” (the obvious answer to that question is, “Yes”)–but rather, “Why did the media botch the coverage of the AZ shooting”? Well, after giving it much thought, I have come up with four reasons why the liberal MSM disgraced themselves so badly with regard to the AZ massacre.

1.) Many liberals are elitists and automatically assume that they are the smartest people in the room, so, therefore, they can get caught mindlessly flapping their gums on a subject about which they know very little.

I know nothing about ichthyology or rocket science, so therefore, I would never go on national television and try to sell myself as an expert on ichthyology or rocket science. However, this past week, there were a plethora of liberals on TV speaking about mental illness as if they were psychiatrists (stating that “angry rhetoric set off the killer”). Well, Charles Krauthammer (who is a Harvard trained psychiatrist) explained Jared Lee Loughner’s state of mind best when he wrote the following in a recent column:

“The charge: The Tucson massacre is a consequence of the “climate of hate” created by Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, Obamacare opponents and sundry other liberal betes noires.

The verdict: Rarely in American political discourse has there been a charge so reckless, so scurrilous and so unsupported by evidence.

As killers go, Jared Loughner is not reticent. Yet among all his writings, postings, videos and other ravings – and in all the testimony from all the people who knew him – there is not a single reference to any of these supposed accessories to murder.

Not only is there no evidence that Loughner was impelled to violence by any of those upon whom Paul Krugman, Keith Olbermann, the New York Times, the Tucson sheriff and other rabid partisans are fixated. There is no evidence that he was responding to anything, political or otherwise, outside of his own head.

A climate of hate? This man lived within his very own private climate. “His thoughts were unrelated to anything in our world,” said the teacher of Loughner’s philosophy class at Pima Community College. “He was very disconnected from reality,” said classmate Lydian Ali. “You know how it is when you talk to someone who’s mentally ill and they’re just not there?” said neighbor Jason Johnson. “It was like he was in his own world.”

His ravings, said one high school classmate, were interspersed with “unnerving, long stupors of silence” during which he would “stare fixedly at his buddies,” reported the Wall Street Journal. His own writings are confused, incoherent, punctuated with private numerology and inscrutable taxonomy. He warns of government brainwashing and thought control through “grammar.” He was obsessed with “conscious dreaming,” a fairly good synonym for hallucinations.

This is not political behavior. These are the signs of a clinical thought disorder – ideas disconnected from each other, incoherent, delusional, detached from reality.

These are all the hallmarks of a paranoid schizophrenic. And a dangerous one. A classmate found him so terrifyingly mentally disturbed that, she e-mailed friends and family, she expected to find his picture on TV after his perpetrating a mass murder. This was no idle speculation: In class “I sit by the door with my purse handy” so that she could get out fast when the shooting began.

Furthermore, the available evidence dates Loughner’s fixation on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords to at least 2007, when he attended a town hall of hers and felt slighted by her response. In 2007, no one had heard of Sarah Palin. Glenn Beck was still toiling on Headline News. There was no Tea Party or health-care reform. The only climate of hate was the pervasive post-Iraq campaign of vilification of George W. Bush, nicely captured by a New Republic editor who had begun an article thus: “I hate President George W. Bush. There, I said it.”

Now, if any of you still have any doubts as to Mr. Loughner’s state of mind, then look no further than the video below where Loughner rambles in a disconnected stream of consciousness about “the torture of students”, “illegal wars”, “mind control by using currency”, “losing his freedom of speech”, his school being a “genocide school”, how “they control the grammar” at the school bookstore….well, you get the picture. The saddest part of the video is halfway through where Mr. Loughner utters the phrase, “I’m in a terrible place”. I have no doubt in my mind that he was/is. (H/T to The Other McCain for the video.)

On a personal note, in my third year of medical school, I did a psychiatry rotation. Now, I would never pretend to know as much about psychiatry as Dr. Krauthammer, but do I know a heck of a lot more than the average MSNBC pundit. In my psych rotation, I saw plenty of paranoid schizophrenic patients. I saw patients who called 911 when they had a bad dream, because they thought they were being murdered. I saw patients who thought that the Bush Administration was out to get them, because of something as simple as maybe a policeman giving them a ticket. And, I saw patients who threatened their spouses with weapons, but couldn’t tell you why they did it. Oh, and I even read about a patient in a medical journal who would see a python on the wall, in place of a curtain rod, if the patient missed their meds. So basically, what I’m trying to tell you is that both nothing and everything sets these patients off. You can ban target maps, Glenn Beck, Moveon.org, policemen giving people tickets, 911 calls, dreaming and curtain rods; however, unless these patients get the help that they need and are properly medicated, they will still have uncontrollable psychotic episodes.

Robert Stacy McCain has done some excellent work on his blog this week reporting on the sanity component of this story. And, one of the things that McCain reported on was the fact that Jared Lee Loughner took Salvia and watched a paranoid 9/11 truther film called Zeitgeist. However, taking Salvia and watching Zeitgeist didn’t make Loughner crazy–Loughner was already mentally unstable, which is why he became obsessed with Zeitgeist and self-medicated with Salvia in the first place.

Does anyone remember James Lee, the mentally unstable man who took hostages at the Discovery Channel headquarters and was eventually shot by the police? Lee claimed that he was motivated by Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth. You didn’t see conservatives blaming Al Gore for that insane act, did you? That is because A.) it goes against our nature to try to blame people after a tragedy (as if anyone had any control over Lee’s actions in the first place)–or try to ban things, like documentaries or political speech–and B.) because Lee didn’t become crazy by watching An Inconvenient Truth. He was already mentally unstable, which is why he became obsessed with An Inconvenient Truth in the first place. You see, a sane mind can take in all kinds of information and stimuli, and it won’t drive him or her to murder.

2.) It is the raison d’etre of many liberals to control people. They think that if they can control more people and create a larger nanny state, then they can stop bad things from happening.

Don’t believe me? Well then, just take a look at the recent ban on Happy Meals in San Fransisco as proof. (The video below is hilarious.)

<td style='padding:2px 1px 0px 5px;' colspan='2'San Francisco’s Happy Meal Ban

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You see, a lot of liberals have good intentions. They think that if they ban Happy Meals, then there won’t be anymore obese children. However, what they don’t realize (and what I learned on my pediatrics rotation in medical school) is that most obese children have obese parents, and consume the majority of their fatty foods at home.

Liberals also think that if they ban guns, then crime will automatically go down. However, what they don’t realize is that criminals still will find a way to get guns, and then 76 year old men will become defenseless prey to street gangs.

So therefore, it’s only natural for liberals to also think that if they can control what people, say, watch or listen to, then that will somehow stop paranoid schizophrenics from going on murder sprees. (Well, not what they say so much–just what you say. Liberals want to be able to use “target” maps and have pundits on MSNBC be able to use incendiary rhetoric–they just don’t want you to be able to do the same thing, because….well, you know, they are just so much smarter and more enlightened than you, so they can do it, but you can’t.)

Liberals always talk about wanting to help the downtrodden. Well, this tragedy in Tuscon would have presented a perfect opportunity to discuss mental illness. The other night on The O’Reilly Factor, Charles Krauthammer discussed how, since the deinstitutionalization of mental hospitals that took place in the 1960′s, many mentally ill people have been left homeless and freezing to death on the streets. John Hawkins also made similar points in an excellent column. It seems that if liberals really cared so much for the poor and the downtrodden, then they would have first mourned the victims of the shooting, and then tried to find some good in this tragedy by using it as an opportunity to provoke a national debate with regard to mental illness (i.e., how to get people the help that they need without violating anyone’s civil liberties). Instead, they used it as an opportunity to bash Sarah Palin and act like the thought police by suggesting that we should “bring back the fairness doctrine”. These actions demonstrate, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the primary focus of modern liberalism is not helping the “little guy”, but bashing Sarah Palin and controlling how people live their lives.

3.) This whole Tuscon Tragedy was the big, red “Do Not Push” button for liberals.

What do I mean by the above statement? Simple. Somehow or another, liberals were able to drag Sarah Palin and the Tea Party into this story (even though they had absolutely NOTHING to do with it). Furthermore, they were able to use this tragedy to discuss gun control, as well as speech control (two ideas that are dear to their hearts). Palin, gun control and controlling conservative speech is the liberal trifecta; therefore, with regard to this story, they just couldn’t control themselves.

David Brooks (of all people) explained this phenomenon perfectly when he wrote the following:

“All of this evidence, which is easily accessible on the Internet, points to the possibility that Loughner may be suffering from a mental illness like schizophrenia.

In short, the evidence before us suggests that Loughner was locked in a world far removed from politics as we normally understand it.

Yet the early coverage and commentary of the Tucson massacre suppressed this evidence. The coverage and commentary shifted to an entirely different explanation: Loughner unleashed his rampage because he was incited by the violent rhetoric of the Tea Party, the anti-immigrant movement and Sarah Palin.

Mainstream news organizations linked the attack to an offensive target map issued by Sarah Palin’s political action committee. The Huffington Post erupted, with former Senator Gary Hart flatly stating that the killings were the result of angry political rhetoric. Keith Olbermann demanded a Palin repudiation and the founder of the Daily Kos wrote on Twitter: “Mission Accomplished, Sarah Palin.” Others argued that the killing was fostered by a political climate of hate.

These accusations — that political actors contributed to the murder of 6 people, including a 9-year-old girl — are extremely grave. They were made despite the fact that there was, and is, no evidence that Loughner was part of these movements or a consumer of their literature. They were made despite the fact that the link between political rhetoric and actual violence is extremely murky. They were vicious charges made by people who claimed to be criticizing viciousness.

Yet such is the state of things. We have a news media that is psychologically ill informed but politically inflamed, so it naturally leans toward political explanations. We have a news media with a strong distaste for Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement, and this seemed like a golden opportunity to tarnish them. We have a segmented news media, so there is nobody in most newsrooms to stand apart from the prevailing assumptions. We have a news media market in which the rewards go to anybody who can stroke the audience’s pleasure buttons.

I have no love for Sarah Palin, and I like to think I’m committed to civil discourse. But the political opportunism occasioned by this tragedy has ranged from the completely irrelevant to the shamelessly irresponsible.”

4.) Ever since Obama has come on the scene, liberals have gone overboard with their incivility and have gotten in the habit of substituting slurs, libel, personal attacks and name-calling for actual political debate.

We are all familiar with the vitriol directed at George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Now, fast forward to the 2008 Democratic primary where the Clintons were accused of racism, and Chris Matthews called Hillary Clinton “witchy” (see the image below that was popular on many liberal blogs). Then, other Democrats tried to pressure Mrs. Clinton to get out of the race and accused her of wanting to have Obama assassinated (sound familiar?). And finally, Keith Olbermann got fed up and demanded that someone just kill her/beat her up. (To be specific, Olberman said that, “Someone should take her in a room and only he comes out”.)

Next, came the general election where John McCain and Sarah Palin basically faced the same sentiment from the liberal media that the Clintons faced. (That sentiment being, “How dare they actually try to beat Obama!”) To be specific, one liberal blogger captured the Left’s sentiment perfectly when he wrote that his “jaw dropped” when John McCain brought up Bill Ayers in the debate. In other words:

“How dare that mean, old fart try to actually win the debate?! Why doesn’t he just walk away and let Obama win the election already? Don’t he and his stupid supporters know that we liberals know what’s best for them and the rest of the country anyway?”

However, nothing quite prepared me to see members of the MSM calling patriotic Americans, who were private citizens exorcising their First Amendment rights, “teabaggers” (which is a vile sexual slur) night after night after night. I recoiled in horror, and thought that this was lowest that the liberal MSM could possibly sink–but I was wrong.

This past week, when liberals in the MSM accused Sarah Palin, the Tea Party and conservatives in general of being somehow complicit in a mass murder…..well, that was their bottom, which is why they are now experiencing such a strong “backlash” (to quote Peter Wehner).

The liberal MSM so badly botched the coverage of the Tuscon massacre, because–for so very long–they have been trying to throw water on that “witch” Sarah Palin, but she simply refuses to melt like the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz did.

Instead, Palin is more like Elphaba from the Broadway musical Wicked–she just keeps coming back stronger and stronger after each setback and attack, managing to fly above it all and help the Republicans win elections. (H/T to the Hillbuzz for the video.)

And now, here was finally their chance–nay, their golden opportunity–to have someone take Palin into a room and only he comes out. The liberal MSM finally thought that they could be rid of Sarah Palin once and for all. And, it was more important to them than anything else–even more important than mourning for the victims of this senseless tragedy.

So, in conclusion, if I had to get inside the mind of the average liberal journalist/elitist and translate their thoughts into liberalese, it would sound something like this:

“Why don’t these stupid racist, redneck teabaggers just sit down and shut up? Why do they even think that they have a right to participate in the political process anyway? Don’t they realize that we liberals know so much more than them? Besides, the Founding Fathers would have hated their guts. I mean, they are so crass and vulgar with their “target” maps and using phrases like, “Don’t retreat, just reload.” Sure, we use target maps, gun metaphors and incendiary rhetoric (like wishing someone would blow up Rush Limbaugh’s head with a CO2 pellet), but we are so much more educated, so it’s less offensive coming from us. And sure, we might have over-reacted with the whole “Sarah Palin and the Tea Party are accessories to murder” bit, but those teabaggers should just turn the other cheek when we attack them, because they listen to white trash like Sarah Palin and talk radio, so they kind of have it coming anyway.”

OK–well, maybe I might be a bit guilty of stereotyping liberals in that above paragraph. But hey, liberals have been stereotyping conservatives for the last two years with the whole “racist, redneck teabagger” bit. It stings a tad when someone does it back to you, huh?

So, if you lefties are really serious about the whole “new tone” thingy that you all have been whining about this entire week, might I suggest that you do two things. First off, you all really need to apologize to Sarah Palin, the Tea Party and conservatives in general for implying that we were all accessories to mass murder (as well as for all of the degrading insults that you’ve thrown our way for the last two years). I mean, that was really appalling behavior and was totally beyond the pale. To quote Charles Blow (who I never thought that I’d quote):

“Within hours of the shooting, there was a full-fledged witch hunt to link the shooter to the right.

“I saw Goody Proctor with the devil! Oh, I mean Jared Lee Loughner! Yes him. With the devil!”

Now we’ve settled into the by-any-means-necessary argument: anything that gets us to focus on the rhetoric and tamp it down is a good thing. But a wrong in the service of righteousness is no less wrong, no less corrosive, no less a menace to the very righteousness it’s meant to support.

You can’t claim the higher ground in a pit of quicksand.

Concocting connections to advance an argument actually weakens it. The argument for tonal moderation has been done a tremendous disservice by those who sought to score political points in the absence of proof. “

Second of all–and most importantly–you guys in the liberal MSM really owe the victims of the Tuscon shooting, their families and the American people an apology. Most Americans probably didn’t even learn the names of the victims until the president’s Wednesday night speech–four days after the shooting took place. Michelle Malkin has the victims’ names and ages on her blog, but I will list them here so that we may mourn them and pray for them–as well as for Congresswoman Giffords:

The deceased have been identified as: Judge John Roll ,63; Dorthy Murray, 76; Dorwin Stoddard, 76; Christina Greene, 9; Phyllis Scheck, 79; and Gabriel Zimmerman, 30.

Furthermore, until several days after the incident, most Americans probably had no idea about Jared Lee Loughner’s obvious signs of mental illness. So therefore, the American people were denied the debate that our country deserves with regard to how to recognize the signs of mental illness, as well as what to do about it (as Benjamin Kerstein explained in his poignant column).

In other words, the media’s need to “get the witch” was so strong, that it overpowered even their need to report the basic facts of the case. Everyone was talking about Sarah Palin’s “target” map, but no one even knew the victims’ names. (And to make matters worse, Sarah Palin is now getting death threats.) Seriously, shame on you guys in the press. If you all want your “new tone”, then you need to man up, suck it up and apologize first–otherwise, all of your pleas to “end the divisive rhetoric” will sound insincere. Like Mr. Blow said, you can’t claim the moral ground while standing in quick sand. Your “by any means necessary” approach has failed. If you call out for help and reach out an arm by offering a sincere apology, then we will help pull you up. Otherwise, you can all continue to sink in the muck together. The choice is yours.

Cross-posted from Parcbench.

For some odd reason, Sarah Palin causes liberal elites to rabidly foam at the mouth. Professor William Jacobson of the blog Legal Insurrection wrote an insightful piece about how conservatives seem to reflexively defend Palin, because liberals seem to be perpetually attacking her. Furthermore, not only do liberals seem to revel in finding weird reasons to attack Sarah Palin, but they also seem to only be happy when they are attacking her family as well (probably because they see them as little “spawns of Sarah”). Now, why is this? I haven’t a clue. However, I can state beyond a reasonable doubt that it’s not helping them.

For example, a couple of days ago, comediennes Kathy Griffin and Margret Cho both attacked Bristol Palin as “fat”–although Cho was a little more subtle about it than Griffin was. (Robert Stacy McCain wrote an excellent piece about both incidents here.) In fact, Griffin was dumb enough to trash Bristol Palin and refer to her as “the white Precious” in front of a group of servicemen who promptly booed her.

Question–does Ms. Griffin not know her audience at all? These are not liberal elites, like Bill Maher, who think that it’s OK to call Bristol Palin a “Hillbilly Heroine”. These are US soldiers who won’t find calling someone’s twenty year old daughter “fat” at all funny.

Moreover, a few weeks ago comedienne Sandra Bernhard called Bristol Palin a “hooker” on Joy Behar’s show because she placed in the finals on Dancing With the Stars. (Ms. Behar seemed very distressed, herself, and said that “Fred and Ginger died last night”.)

Surprising to say, Behar and Bernhard weren’t the only liberals to get so wee-weed up over Bristol Palin making it to the finals on Dancing With the Stars. Washington Post columnist, Sally Quinn, wrote a long piece about how her head was about to explode because Bristol Palin made it to the finals of Dancing With the Stars. Ann Althouse best described Quinn’s disingenuous hyperventilating when she wrote the following:

And this strangely sanctimonious journalist — she’s writing in the always awful “On Faith” section of The Washington Post — condemns Palin voters for “cheating” 7 paragraphs after she confesses to doing something that is at least as much cheating as what the Palin fans are said to be doing.

“Not only that, but I vote. Under the show’s rules, you’re allowed to vote five times on one line. I have six lines at home and my cell, so I vote as many times as I can for my favorite. “

So this lady, this longtime Washington powerbroker, has 6 phone lines, and she maxes each line out, each week, voting 30 times. But that’s the show’s rules. They can’t tell how many individuals vote are voting. They can only see phone numbers. So if your family of 5 watches the show and you — you economic losers — only have one phone, you can make 5 calls. Sally Quinn happens to have 6 phone lines, so she gets 30 votes — under the rules.

“Commenters on the conservative blog Hillbuzz.org said they had figured out how to enter more votes than the rules allow by creating fake e-mail addresses. One person posting on Hillbuzz said “Lord have mercy, I voted for three hours online! I got 300 in.”

What is a “fake e-mail address”? The rules say you are allowed 5 votes from each email address, just as you are allowed 5 votes from each phone number. Some people have multiple phone numbers and some have multiple email addresses. What’s the difference? All I can think of is that you have to spend money to have multiple phone numbers, and you can get multiple email accounts free. It feels so right for rich folk to get more. I love when liberals slip up like that.

Question–hey Lefties, first of all, you have to know that calling Bristol Palin a “fat hooker” is not a good way to win friends and influence people, right? I mean, Bristol Palin probably wears a size six or a size eight–most American women wear a size ten (Marilyn Monroe wore a size twelve). Do you really think that calling the majority of American women “fat” is a winning strategy for you?

Second of all, you guys do realize that this is just a television show and that normal people don’t freak out or want to shoot the TV because Bristol Palin won, right? Full disclosure here–I’ve never seen an episode of Dancing With the Stars (I’ve watched clips on YouTube), but if one of the Obama girls happen to make it to the finals in a few years, I would be quite happy for her (even if she wasn’t that great of a dancer).

Now, having your head explode over Bristol Palin making it to the finals on Dancing With the Stars is not the only symptom of Palin Derangement Syndrome–apparently, Sarah Palin’s Facebook postings are enough to give a lot of liberals the vapors. For instance, Andrew Sullivan recently wrote a piece whining about Sarah Palin mocking Barack Obama’s famous “57 states gaffe”, and accused her of “trashy behavior” (but, he didn’t say what was “trashy” about her behavior).

[Hey Andrew, by "trashy behavior", do you mean spreading internet rumors that a woman's baby is not really her own, and is that of her teenage daughter? Because that would be you Andrew, not Sarah Palin. But, I digress.]

Well, if Sullivan had any sense of humor at all, he would have written that Palin’s Facebook post was funny and admitted that she had a point that the media tends to give Obama a pass on his gaffes, but tends to hammer everyone else on theirs (as even SNL pointed out during the Democratic primary). Normal people like people who can laugh at themselves and respond very well to self-deprecating humor.

However, Sullivan was not only upset by Sarah Palin’s recent Facebook post, but her daughter Willow’s as well (where she gets involved with trash-talk with another teenager when she defends her sister Bristol). First of all, does Sullivan realize that Willow Palin is a sixteen year old girl, and that normal Americans find it to be very strange and distasteful when grown men pick on other people’s children? Even Jon Stewart told liberals to back off and to “stop making me feel sorry for the Palins”.

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Second of all, does Sullivan realize how weird it is to obsess over Sarah Palin and her family’s Facebook postings? I mean, Sarah Palin was only a vice-presidential nominee –she was never even the vice-president. You don’t see us conservatives obsessing over Joe Leiberman’s or John Edward’s Facebook postings, much less their kids Facebook postings. This is very strange behavior. I would suggest that if reading the Palin family’s Facebook postings upsets you so much, then stop reading them.

Finally, speaking of weird behavior, Charles Blow recently wrote a column about how he wasn’t going to talk about Sarah Palin anymore, but then spent the entire column writing about how much Sarah Palin sucks. Hey Charles, I thought that you said that you weren’t going to talk about Sarah Palin anymore? You see, if most people say that they aren’t going to talk about someone anymore, then they just don’t talk about them anymore–they don’t proceed to, then, write an entire column about how terrible the person is.

In fact, this column of Blow’s is almost as weird as Keith Olbermann naming Bristol Palin his “Worst Person in the World”, or Aaron Sorkin comparing Sarah Palin to Michael Vick for hunting a Caribou. (I’m sure that the millions of hunters all across America deeply appreciate that comparison.) Oh, and Keith, really???!! Bristol Palin is your “Worst Person in the World”? Not Kim Jong-Il, not Ahmadinajad, but Bristol Palin for discussing abstinence?! No, that’s not at all strange to most Americans. (Rolls eyes.)

So, in conclusion, this whole Palin Derangement Syndrome definitely hurt the Left during the past mid-term election, and is continuing to hurt them now. Why? Well, for two obvious reasons. First of all, during the last election, it appeared as if liberals were spending way too much time speaking out against the Palins (none of whom were on the ballot), and not enough time explaining why people should vote for Obama’s policies and liberal candidates. Throughout the previous election, PDS proved to be a huge distraction for the Left.

Second of all, constantly attacking someone’s children as “fat, trashy, hookers” seems, well, quite mean to normal, well-adjusted Americans who aren’t weirdos. Most Americans think that mean people suck and don’t want to vote for a party that seems to embrace nastiness. Hey, you can listen to me, or you can continue smacking around Sarah Palin and her kids. The choice is yours. However, I just have one question for you guys. How did that PDS work out for you in the last election?

This column is cross-posted from Parcbench, The Minority Report, The Green Room, Hillbillypolitics and Right Wing News.

First, I will begin with liberal sexism, which ironically began when Hillary Clinton ran for president (yes, I know that she is also a Democrat, but you can’t forget that she was opposing “The One” ; therefore, she became “the enemy”). For example, you had New York Magazine Columnist, Kurt Andersen, write in a column that Hillary had a “Wal-Mart shopper’s bad hair and big bum”. (Andersen also admitted in this column that the media was rooting for Obama and called Hillary’s voters “uneducated losers and Yokels from the C and D counties” Hey Andersen–elitist much?!) Now, I wonder what Andersen would have to say if someone referred to Michelle Obama as having “Wal-Mart shopper’s bad hair and big bum”? I bet that he would think that it was a tad sexist if those same words were used on his candidate, huh? Oh, and who could forget David Shuster saying that the Clinton’s were “pimping Chelsea out”? Gee, I wonder what his reaction would have been if someone had said that about the Obamas when they brought their daughters on Access Hollywood? I bet that Shuster would have been outraged. And, Chris Matthews
managed to outrage just about every woman I know by calling Hillary Clinton “witchy”, “Nurse Ratched”, “Madame Defarge”, and by saying that here voice was “like fingernails on a chalkboard”. Once again, I wonder what Matthews’ reaction would have been if a conservative pundit had said the exact same things about Michelle Obama? And, if Matthews remarks weren’t bad enough, Keith Olbermann turned up the misogyny to full throttle when he said, in regard to Hillary, that “Someone should take her into a room and only he comes out” (translation–beat the crap out of her). Gee, I wonder what old Olbie’s response would have been if some conservative pundit had said the same thing about Michelle Obama? I bet he would have a very long winded Special Comment prepared especially for him (as well as labeling him “The Worst Person in the World”) don’t you think? And finally, Maureen Dowd managed to anger many of The New York Times’ regular readers (Clark Hoyt, the New York Times public editor, admitted as much in an op-ed; however, he later allowed Dowd to transfer her sexist venom to Sarah Palin) by writing a plethora of sexist columns about Mrs. Clinton, such as this column titled, “Can Hillary Cry her Way Back to the Whitehouse?”, this one titled, “There Will be Blood” (where she stated that Hillary “got agitated and was flapping her arms”), and this one titled, “Seeing Red over Hillary” (where she compared Hillary Clinton to Scarlet O’Hara), just to name a few. Oh, I almost forgot. Jake Tapper was the only reporter who had the stones to call out The One for using sexist code words against Hillary Clinton (like “claws coming out” and “periodically, when she’s feeling down”) and for calling a reporter “Sweetie” (and he also called out US Congressman Steve Cohen, an ardent Obama supporter, for referring to Senator Clinton as “Glenn Close from Fatal Attraction”). Come to think of it, Obama, himself, wasn’t exactly setting the most politically correct tone, was he?

[On a side note, Huffington Post blogger Jeff Norman defended former Air America radio host Randi Rhodes' right to refer to Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro as "big f**king wh*res", by stating that it was a free speech issue and by writing that Ferraro was "whining on Fox News" about the comment being sexist. Now, suppose a conservative radio host had referred to Michelle Obama as a "big f**king wh*re"? I wonder if Norman would still think that it was just "semantic quibbling about free speech"? I highly doubt it.]

Now, Hillary Clinton was just the appetizer for liberals’ sexism–Sarah Palin was the main course. When Governor Palin was announced as John McCain’s running mate, most of the liberal elites let their inner misogynist come out to play. For example, you had the usual suspects like Chris Matthews start immediately attacking her–in fact he went so overboard that Pat Buchanan called Matthews a misogynist to his face (and Pat Buchanan is hardly a staunch feminist so when he tells you that “you have a problem with strong women”, then you need serious help). Then, of course, Maureen Dowd started right where she left off with Hillary, and started writing sexist and degrading columns about Sarah Palin such as this one titled, “A Vice in Go-Go Boots” (which was loaded with sexist stereotypes such as calling Governor Palin “An underqualified babe”), or this one titled, “Mud Pies for That One” (where she called Palin “John McCain’s Mean Girl” and falsely accuses the McCain campaign of racism), or this column titled, “Sarah’s PomPom Palaver” (where she compared Palin to Alicia Silverstone in “Clueless”). Just a thought, but I wonder what Maureen Dowd would have said if a conservative pundit was writing columns about Michelle Obama that were loaded with sexist stereotypes? Take that back–I know exactly what she would way. In this column, Dowd claims that conservatives were trying to paint Michelle Obama as a “harridan”, but of course she offers absolutely no examples of how conservatives were attempting this feat. However, I find this charge incredibly hypocritical on Dowd’s part, because pretty much all she does in her b*tchy columns is paint other women as harridans, but I digress.

[Oh, if anyone is curious, I wrote a diary a while ago that went into great detail about Maureen Dowd's pathetic behavior towards other women that she's threatened by and her snobbery towards her fellow Americans.]

Now, it should be noted, that Governor Palin didn’t just make the MSM bring out it’s inner misogynist, she made some of them bring out their inner lunatic/conspiracy theorist. For instance, Andrew Sullivan wrote a blog asking Governor Palin to release her medical records to prove that her baby with Down’s Syndrome is really hers. And below, I have embedded a video of Bill Maher telling CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin that he doesn’t think that Trig Palin is Sarah Palin’s baby.

[My husband pointed out to me that we weren't even allowed to ask if Barack Obama was born in the US, even though his father, step father, and sister were all born outside of the US (I personally think that he was born in the US, but that's not the point.) However, members of the MSM and bloggers on Daily Kos were allowed to perpetually float their tinfoil hat theories about Sarah Palin's baby, and no one really batted an eye. (But then again, when Daily Kos bloggers routinely traffic in anti-Jewish sentiment, Markos Moulitisas simply refers to it as "democracy", so therefore, I guess that no one should really be surprised by any of the filth that appears on Daily Kos.)]

Now, if the first video wasn’t grotesque enough for you, here is another video of Bill Maher calling Sarah Palin’s daughter a “Hillbilly Heroine”, calling Sarah Palin a “MILF”, then he proceeds to make fun of her children’s names, and then he tops it off by stating that Americans are racist and aren’t very bright. Don’t believe me? Watch the embed and see for yourself.

Furthermore, liberals have continued to attack Sarah Palin with sexist bile to this day–more than six months after Barack Obama has been elected president! If that’s not sick, then I don’t know what is. For instance, everyone’s heard about David Letterman recently making a total ass out of himself by saying that Sarah Palin looks like a “slutty flight attendant” and then making a disgusting joke about her fourteen year old daughter getting knocked up by Alex Rodrgiuez (H/T Caleb Howe). However, what’s even more pathetic than Letterman’s obvious sexism and rape jokes about a fourteen year old girl, are liberals who actually defend him. For example, as Ed Morrissey of Hot Air points out, Contessa Brewer of MSNBC ( the official Obama network) seems visibly angered by conservative pundit John Ziegler’s criticisms of David Letterman and even goes so far as cutting his mike and stating that she would have no problem with being called a “slutty flight attendant” (which I find extremely hard to believe). Furthermore, as HotAirPundit points out, “Imagine if it was Michelle Obama Letterman was talking about, and he took a shot at Obama’s daughters”–I bet that Contessa Brewer would go bats**t if that happened, but I digress.

And finally, now liberals have graduated from making sexist attacks against women who run against Obama to making sexist attacks against conservative women in general. Exhibit A would be Perez Hilton calling Carrie Prejean a “stupid btch” because she disagrees with him on gay marriage, even though, as Michelle Malkin points out, she has the same position on gay marriage as Barack Obama. Exhibit B would be the column in Playboy Magazine, written by liberal blogger Guy Cimbalo, about the top ten conservative women that he would most like to “hate f*k” (translation–rape). Playboy wound up having to pull down the article because it was so offensive, but our own Caleb Howe was smart enough to save the offensive article here. However, what’s even more egregious than that misogynistic hatefest of an article, was the fact that AOL fired liberal blogger Tommy Christopher for daring to criticize the dreadful article. Tommy Christopher was one of the few liberals in the blogosphere or the MSM that had the decency to report on this outrage and not turn a blind eye to it, and he had a spot inside the White House press corps, but I guess that liberals like to protect their own–that and Playboy and AOL are both owned by Time Warner.

So, in conclusion, to take a page from Jeff Foxworthy’s playbook, if you think that it’s OK to call female candidates “witchy”, talk about their “bad hair and big bum”, imply that you’d like to beat them, call them a “mean girl”, compare them to Alicia Silverstone or Scarlett O’Hara, call them “slutty flight attendants” or “big f**king wh*res”, and make tasteless remarks and rape jokes about their female children–then you might be a sexist. Either that, or you’re a liberal who doesn’t believe in taking personal responsibility for your own actions. Oh, and if you think that it’s OK to call a woman a “stupid btch” or “hate f*k her simply because you disagree with her politics, then you’re not only a sexist, but you’re a full-blown misogynist as well.

Now, on to liberal racism and bigotry. First I’ll start with the most obvious example–Lawrence O’Donnell’s famous anti-Mormon rant in which he states that “Mitt Romney comes from a religion that was founded by a criminal who was anti-American, pro-slavery, and a rapist” (see embed below where Pat Buchanan makes a fool out of O’Donnell).

Well, first of all, as Newsbusters and Jake Tapper point out, Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon religion, was actually anti-slavery. However, what really cracks me up about O’Donnell’s nutty rant, is that he implied that Romney needed to”answer” for what Joseph Smith said or thought in 1844. However, when Barack Obama gave his famous race speech–which was in response to Reverend Wright’s rants going public–Lawrence O’Donnell was one of the loudest voices on MSNBC praising Obama’s speech. So, let me get this straight. According to Lawrence O’Donnell, Mitt Romney needs to “answer” for what Joseph Smith said back in 1844; however, Barack Obama doesn’t have to answer for his pastor’s very recent racist, anti-American, anti-Semitic rants (see embed below)?! Man, that’s really rich.

Furthermore, as Allahpundit of HotAir points out, Reverend Wright told reporters several days ago that “them Jews aren’t going to let me talk to Obama”. To quote Allahpundit, “Exit question: 20 years spent in the pews of Trinity and who knows how many private conversations had with Wright, and yet not once did Obama ever encounter this sort of rhetoric from the good reverend, huh? Who, mind you, can’t even suppress it when speaking to reporters on the record. Remarkable.” Allahpundit further points out that “at least we now know how Hamas propaganda wound up in the church bulletins“.

Oh, but silly me. It’s Mitt Romney who needs to answer for what Joseph Smith said in 1844–not Barack Obama who needs to answer for what his pastor/mentor of twenty years (who married him and baptized his kids) said in 2004-2009, because, according to Joe Klein, I’m just “spreading the poison” by even bringing this up.

Oh, and speaking of liberal bigotry, here is our old pal Bill Maher again. This time, instead of spewing sexist venom, he’s spewing anti-Muslim, anti-Jewish, anti-Mormon and anti-Christian venom in his documentary “Religulous” (see the embed below). Hey Bill, there’s a word for people who make documentaries that call Muslims, Jews, Mormons and Evangelical Christians “crazy” and mocks their cultures and beliefs–hint: it starts with the letter B and ends with “igot”. Oh, and one more thing. Could any of you imagine what liberals’ reactions would be if a fiery Evangelical minister made a documentary making fun of Muslims, Jews and Mormons and implied that they were “crazy”? Just a thought.

And guess what other famous liberal is not only a sexist, but also a racist–you guessed it Maureen Dowd. During the general election, Ms. Dowd wrote a column called “Mr. Darcy Comes Courting” where she poses the question “Can America get over it’s prejudice and elect the first black president?” Well, I find it quite humorous that Ms. Dowd is so quick to toss out accusations of racism against her fellow Americans when, according to the Gawker, Maureen Dowd thinks that all black people look alike. Not to mention, Ms. Dowd even admitted in a column that she asked her “cute black mailman” (her words, not mine) how he felt about Obama’s win. Furthermore, the Gawker also pointed out that, in the same column where she brags about talking to her “cute black mailman” (and black people in general for the first time), Maureen Dowd also seems to brag about having one black friend, Gwen Ifil. (Hey Maureen–project much?!) I mean, can any of you imagine the reaction that a conservative columnist would have gotten if she wrote a column bragging about talking to black people for the first time and about having a black friend?

Oh, and here’s another example of bigotry brought to you courtesy of Maureen Dowd. Now, in the column “Barbies for War!” (which is probably the snobbiest thing that I’ve ever read in my entire life), Ms. Dowd writes about her trip to Wasilla, AK. In the column, she writes about AK as if she is literally visiting a foreign country and observing the local people’s customs (Dowd also spends half of the column making fun of Sarah Palin‘s church). In “Barbies for War!”, she mentions meeting Betty Necas. In her column, Ms. Dowd mentions that Ms. Necas was a teenage mom, and describes her as a “Wal-mart mom” who “wears sweatpants and has tattoos on her wrists”. OK, let’s play a game. Suppose that a conservative columnist from say The Wall Street Journal or National Review wrote a column about visiting inner city Harlem as if it were a foreign country, mocked the churches there, and described Obama supporters that he came in contact with as wearing tattoos and sweatpants, being overweight, and liking mac and cheese (which is how she described Hillary’s supporters in “Mr. Darcy Comes Courting”)? I’m not a betting woman, but I would bet everything that I own that he would be out of a job the very next day–and rightfully so I might add.

[On a side note, poor Maureen can't seem to catch a break. Not only is she a bigot, but she's also a rather unimaginative plagiarist, so you kinda have to feel sorry for her, but I digress.]

Now, more recent examples of lefty bigotry would be Sonya Sotomayor saying in multiple speeches that being “a wise Latina” gives her “better judgment than a white male” (in the link that I provided, Stuart Taylor hits it out of the park when he states that, “Any prominent white male would be instantly and properly banished from polite society as a racist and a sexist for making an analogous claim of ethnic and gender superiority or inferiority.”) and Andrew Sullivan writing in a blog that the Jooooos control The Washington Post and want Obama to fail in Iran so that Isreal can attack Iran (H/T Moe Lane). Seriously Andrew, between your wild conspiracies about Sarah Palin’s baby and your wild conspiracy theories about the Jewish lobby, you are starting to sound like some of the patients that I saw on my Psyche rotation during my third year of medical school. Dude, lose the tinfoil hat and get on some medication ASAP, but I digress.

However, the best example of liberal racism and bigotry that I can think of is Janeane Garofalo. First, she goes on Keith Olbermann’s show and calls all of the Tea Party protesters “a bunch of teabagging, racist redncecks” even though, during the Bush Years, she said that dissent was patriotic and that she was “in favor of any citizen talking if they wanted to” (see embed below).

However, in another segment on Olbermann’s show, Garofalo states that “Black Repulicans suffer from Stockholm Syndrome” (particularly, Michael Steele) and then compares female Republicans to “Eva Braun” (Olbermann laughs along as she spews her bigotry). Yes ladies and gentlemen, you heard her correctly–Ms. Garofalo thinks that all black people should think alike, and if they don’t, then they are mentally ill. There’s a word for that–it starts with the letter R and ends with “acist”. Below is a hilarious video from the Fox News Show Red Eye which calls Garafalo out on her obvious bigotry.

Moreover, Barack Obama, himself, was hardly Mr. Tolerance on the campaign trail. We all remember when he referred to rural Pennsylvanians as “Bitter, gun-clinging, xenophobes” and when he referred to his grandmother as a “typical white person”. Suppose a white southern, conservative male, like say Fred Thompson, referred to someone as a “typical black person” on a radio show–I bet the left would crucify him, but I digress. Oh, and as far as Obama attending reverend Wright’s church for twenty years, I think that Charles Krauthammer in his column “Questions of Character” said it best when he wrote that, ““He doesn’t share Rev. Wright’s poisonous views of race nor Ayers’ views, past and present, about the evil that is American society. But Obama clearly did not consider these views beyond the pale. For many years he swam easily and without protest in that fetid pond”. I also thought that Krauthammer hit it out of the park when he wrote the following–

“Had any white presidential candidate had a close 20-year association with a white preacher overtly spreading race hatred from the pulpit, that candidate would have been not just universally denounced and deemed unfit for office but written out of polite society entirely.”

So, in conclusion, I think that the liberal philosophy on racism and sexism can be summed up by the following phrase–

Bigotry for me, but not for thee.

Actually, that would be the short version. The long version would be, “I’m a liberal and I voted for Obama….I can never be a racist or a sexist. Therefore, I get to say all of the bigoted crap that I want”. There are several examples of this philosophy put into action. The first one would be when The LA Times published an op-ed titled, “Obama the Magic Negro” and Rush Limbaugh wrote a song mocking the column, and all the liberals called him a racist (I, personally, don’t think the term “magic negro” is very tasteful or politically correct, but I also think that it’s total hypocrisy to say that The LA Times can publish the column, but that Rush Limbaugh is a racist for mocking the column–and for the record, I don’t regularly listen to Rush). Another example of this philosphy is Perez Hilton calling Carrie Prejean a “stupid b*tch” for disagreeing with him on gay marriage (and for the record, I have no problem with gay marriage), but then thinking that he can turn around and call will i am a “f**got” (and having the nerve to be surprised when he got punched out for it). And finally, the George Allen “Macaca” incident comes to mind. Don’t get me wrong, I do not approve of calling anyone “Macaca”–it is rude and boorish and Senator Allen was right to apologize. However, when I first heard the term, I wasn’t quite sure what it meant, but I knew that it sounded familiar. Well, when I looked it up in my old zoology textbook (I took vertebrate zoology in undergrad in order to get my biology degree and I never traded in that textbook, because I thought that it was cool), I remembered that it was the Genus for for the Maques monkey (in Senator Allen’s defense, I doubt that he knew what it meant, because he doesn’t strike me as someone who moonlights as a closet zoologist–no offense to him).

However, If someone said that I had “a Wal-Mart shopper’s bad hair and big bum”, called me “Glenn Close from Fatal Attraction”, said that I “looked like a slutty flight attendant”, made rape jokes about my daughter, or said that they wanted to “hate-f**k” me, I know for a fact that I wouldn’t have to look any of those things up in a textbook–I’d know exactly what that person meant. Furthermore, when I heard Janeane Garofalo say that “All black Republicans have Stockholm Syndrome”, and when I heard Maureen Down brag about deigning to talk to her “cute black mailman”, or when I heard Lawrence O’Donnell’s anti-Mormon rant, I didn’t have to look any of that up in some textbook–I knew exactly what they were getting at. And finally, when I heard Reverend Wright’s sermons/rants, I knew exactly what he meant (and I’m pretty sure that Obama did too)–yet Senator Allen loses his VA Senate seat for calling some guy “Macaca”, but Barack Obama gets to president after sitting in a racist, anti-Semitic church for twenty years. Go figure.

[Oh, and none of you lefty lurkers better bring up Jerome Corsi. I wrote a diary where I went out of my way to condemn his "secret Muslim theory" about Obama and I told people not to buy his book. Furthermore, Redstate and The Minority Report banned anyone who even mentioned that Obama was a Muslim or the Antichrist. Unlike liberals, we police our own here and call out bad behavior. And besides, NOBODY mainstream in the Republican party was promoting that.]

So, In conclusion, why do liberals feel entitled to have the philosphy “Bigotry for me, but not for thee?” There are basically three reasons. The first reason is that some of them have become so “personally and ideologically invested in Barack Obama” (to quote Pat Buchanan), that they have literally become Machiavellian and will use any weapon in their arsenal to destroy people who they perceive as Obama’s enemies–and will even resort to sexism and blatant bigotry if they feel that it’s necessary (Chris Matthews, Andrew Sullivan and Jeaneane Garofalo fall into this category). The second group are people who have kind of a medieval mentality. They think that by voting for Obama for president (and by being liberals themselves) that they have bought indulgences in The Church of the Obamamessiah, and so therefore, they can get away with saying any offensive crap that they want, and that because they support St. Barack of Hope, they will automatically get absolution for their sins (this is similar to people who travel in big private jets but buy carbon credits–Maureend Dowd, Bill Maher, and Lawrence O’Donnell fit into this group). Now, the third group simply consists of people who are aware of the MSM’s liberal bias; therefore, they know that they can say whatever they want and they won’t be held to the same standard that a conservative would (Sonya Sotomayor, Perez Hilton, and Guy Cimbalo (the guy who wrote the Hatef**k article) fit into this category).

OK, right now, some liberals who are reading this might be saying to themselves, “You know, Susannah makes some good points. Maybe we should take the plank out of our own eye and start calling out bad behavior on our side when we see it”–however, trust me, these people are in the minority. Most of the trolls that will read and comment on this diary will A.) Personally attack me and Redstate (instead of refuting any of the points that I made) B.) Bring up how “evil” they think Bush and Cheney are C.) Carry on about how they don’t believe in American exceptionalism and how we should be more like Sweden–that’s the whiny, liberal troll trifecta boys and girls. (Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think that all liberals are whiny. My mother’s a liberal and she’s certainly not whiny; however, the trolls that we get here sure the hell are).

So, come on all of you trolls out there–channel you’re inner Joy Behar or Keith Olbermann and give me your best shot. Just please try not to be too shrill–we don’t want to hurt any dog’s ears in the nearby vicinity do we? OK–all together now–

“I’m a liberal and I voted for Obama…..I can’t be a sexist or a racist. Therefore, I get a pass to say all of the offensive crap that I want. And besides, Bush is evil and Cheney is Darth Vader, and America sucks and we should bow to and backslap more dictators so other countries will like us more” (pouts and stomps foot).

Oh, and if any of you forgot how to whine and moan, see exhibit A below.

Damn, it’s good to be back–even if just for a little while.

This diary is cross-posted on The Minority Report.