Liberal Hate Speech?

Well it's time for Jeff Jacobs annual column talking about Liberal Hate Speech.

The examples he comes up with this time around are pretty weak. A few Nazi analogies, and an NPR "diva" who hoped that General Boykin was not long for this world. She claims she meant that he was not long in his job, Jacobs claims that she was clearly wishing for Boykin's death, and I'm inclined to believe the Diva. He pads the score a bit by including past winners.

He doesn't seem to have a problem with conservative hate speech. He's aware, for example, of Michael Savages exhortation that a caller to "get AIDS and die, you pig." Perhaps he would respond that such comments are obviously detestable, and he shouldn't need to condemn them for us to know he disapproves of them. That may be so, but it is telling when a writer condemns one branch of hate speech and doesn't condemn the other.

On the plus side, he does comment, "Of course this complaint can be taken too far. Ed Gillespie, the Republican Party's chairman, has lately been accusing Democrats of engaging in "political hate speech" when they call Bush a "liar" or a "miserable failure." But there is a world of difference between labeling someone a failure and labeling him Hitler. " Fair enough. And it must be frustrating, assuming Mr. Jacobs really feels this way, to have his justified criticisms of liberal hate speech (and some of them are justified) diluted to include basically all liberal criticisms of the President.