Absurd Hypotheticals Based On Stereotypes Are Okay If Liberals Do It

Because, the morally perfect are, after all, a law unto themselves. Typical, as described by James Taranto:

Hypocritical Hypotheticals

On "Fox News Sunday" yesterday, Juan Williams joined the attack on Bennett. The way in which he did it made our jaw drop, and let us count the ways. This is from the Factiva transcript (alas, not available publicly online); "Brit" is Brit Hume, who was defending Bennett:

What's clearly wrong is if you wanted to say, oh, gosh, you know, [1] maybe we should have abortions for every woman who has a history in her family of mental illness or anybody who has a disabled child, or [2] let's get rid of all the Christians, they certainly have been involved in lots of wars. [3] How about the Jews? You know what? [4] We have trouble with older people in this country. Clearly, they, you know, cause a great burden on our Social Security system. Maybe we should do away with some of these older people.

You know, Brit, it really speaks to a deeply racist mindset to imagine America somehow as better off if we didn't have those black people around and all those racial issues and all these--you know, so many of these blacks end up in jail, as if they're criminals because they're black. . . . He certainly said it to me. That's what . . . I heard, Brit. . . .

Brit, if I'm sitting here on a national talk show and I say, you know, [5] maybe if we killed off these white people, we wouldn't have so many mass murders in America, you'd say, Juan, are you out of your mind? . . .

Words have meaning, Brit. . . . I think what you're misunderstanding is it's the idea that he gave voice to this notion. If you were in a Nazi regime and said [6] you know, gee, you know, a lot of these Jewish people have businesses and they dominate the academy, and therefore wouldn't it be better--that's not a good idea, Brit. Not a good idea to give voice to.

No fewer than six times in a 10-minute segment, Williams did exactly what Bennett did that so offended him--namely, offer an outrageous hypothetical to illustrate a point. We're no more offended by Williams's doing so than we were by Bennett's, but Williams's hypocrisy is simply mind-boggling.