make mine a double (standard)

If there's anything that jumps out at me about the current argument over healthcare reform (wait, I mean healthcare insurance reform), it's the way that the Left characterizes those who have taken to the town hall meetings happening around the country to protest. Maybe I'm confused, but how is it that some disruptions are tolerable and others aren't? More to the point, how is it that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, third in line for the Presidency (ponder that for a while and see if you don't wake up in a cold sweat), can join the cacaphony of the usual liberal suspects in calling real American citizens, who are exercising the rights afforded them under the Constitution to protest a possible government action with which they disagree, the types of names that no thinking person should ever use?

• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) in an op-ed piece in USA Today last week: "Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American." It was a different story in 2006, however, when a Pelosi town hall meeting was disrupted by a Code Pink protest: "It's always exciting,'' she told reporters after the meeting. "This is democracy in action. I'm energized by it, frankly."
• Pelosi on the healthcare town hall protestors: "They're carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on healthcare."

It's not all Pelosi's fault, though. Ultimately, she's a partisan hack who can't really help herself; she'll say anything to appease her far-Left base, including this unprecedented attack on a sitting president during last year's presidential campaign. The other significant party to this disgusting process of demonizing real American citizens is the mainstream media (the MSM or legacy media), which consistently refuses to balance its coverage of anything related to President Obama and no doubt looks at the town hall protesters like the Israelites looked at manna.

As much as the MSM ignored the vile things the Left said about President Bush, as much as they looked the other way when protesters carried signs that linked Bush with Nazis, they are now taking aim at conservative-leaning groups (such as the Tea Party protesters) in an attempt to marginalize them and significantly reduce their influence on the broader public debate around healthcare "reform." Take a look at Chris Matthews' confrontational interview with one healthcare town hall protester and tell me he has one iota of objectivity; I'd suggest he lost any objectivity he had when the tingles hit his leg. The sad part is, he's not the only one, and the real losers here are We the People.

In the end, perhaps we'd all do well to recall the words of wisdom offered by current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton back in 2003 (when she was the junior Senator from New York): "I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you’re not patriotic. We should stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration."

Who knew she'd be so prescient?