Any Stick Will Do

There is no such thing as leftist consistency:

Character Issues Weren't "Tangential" When the Story Was Bush's ANG Service
[Stephen Spruiell]

A bunch of liberal journalists have written an open letter to ABC to whine about its handling of Wednesday night's debate. "We're at a crucial moment in our country's history," they write. "Large majorities of our fellow Americans tell pollsters they're deeply worried about the country's direction... Tough, probing questions on these issues clearly serve the public interest... excessive emphasis on tangential 'character' issues do not."

The signers include at least seven contributors to The Nation, whose editors never saw anything "tangential" about George W. Bush's Air National Guard service and what that said about his character. A Google search of The Nation's website for stories on that topic yields 72 stories — none of which called on the media to stop focusing on such a tangential character issue.

ABC's critics also continue to insist that the American people don't care about issues like Obama's association with William Ayers or Clinton's lying about her trip to Bosnia, but they undermine their own argument by getting furious with anyone who mentions these topics. They're furious because they know that Americans do care about their president's character, and they know that these stories — if they get too much attention — will hurt their candidate in the fall.