Birds of a Feather

An interesting facet of this whole Don Imus affair: how come so many conservatives have rushed to the defense of the ostensibly liberal shock jock? Do any of these conservative pundits realize how tranparent their selective defense of racist folks has become?

Then there's the bizarre conspiracy theory floating around conservative circles. To wit: liberals only ganged up to have Imus fired, so that action could set a precedent to fire conservative pundits in the future. Imus as sacrificial lamb.

Let's assume this vast left-wing conspiracy exists then. Do conservatives really have good reason to be distraught should any of the following high-profile pundits get similarly axed or uninvited to the popular pundit panels they currently infest?

Anne Coulter: "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." And let's not forget the recent John Edwards remark. Among a gazillion such remarks.

Rush Limbaugh: "[S]ince Obama has -- on his mother's side -- forebears of his mother had slaves, could we not say that if Obama wins the Democratic nomination and then wins the presidency, he will own Al Sharpton?"

Bill O'Reilly: "[M]any of the poor in New Orleans" did not evacuate the city before Hurricane Katrina because "[t]hey were drug-addicted" and "weren't going to get turned off from their source. ... They were thugs."

That transparency thing. I just don't get it. How do they not see their defense of such malignancy for what it is? It's pathological.