Seriously, if Obama were to announce a plan to fight serial killers who target nuns and orphans, Republicans would take the side of the serial killers, just out of reflex.

Obama scored a coup with the $20 billion escrow fund (who knows how much of that will actually be paid, or if it’ll be enough to pay for what can be paid for, but hey, we can hope). Several prominent Republicans immediately took the side of BP. Palin, Limbaugh, Bachmann and others on the right were opposed to BP paying for the oil spill.

Wow. How knee-jerkingly tone deaf can you be? I mean it, seriously. And it’s not just that: they actually got upset that Obama mention God so much.

The only down side: they probably won’t pay a political price for this. Most people in America are too comfortable with the whole “It’s OK If You’re A Republican” bit. Really, a right-winger would have to sexually molest an infant on live TV to cross the line these days, and maybe not even then.

Not that I’m complaining: anything right-wingers can do to screw up the midterms for themselves is OK with me. But after Republicans succeeding by acting like hysterically demented idiots for the past year and a half, I’m not holding my breath or anything.

What do the following have in common?

• Using budget reconciliation
• Speaking to schoolchildren
• Schoolchildren sing songs about you
• Using TelePrompTers
• Having “Czars”
• Corporate bailouts
• Bowing to foreign royalty
• Prosecuting terrorists in civilian courts
• Interring terrorists in civilian prisons
• Reading terrorists their Miranda rights
• Criticizing specific media outlets for unfavorable coverage
• Not wearing a jacket or tie
• Not wearing a flag lapel pin
• Putting your feet up on your desk
• Not going to church all the time

If you guessed “things Obama has been criticized for,” you’d be correct, but incomplete. The full answer is, “things Obama is criticized for though other presidents were not.” Even more specifically, “things that Bush did to the same or a greater degree but no one noticed, but when Obama does them, the right wing goes berserk.”

This came to note recently when Obama was castigated by right-wingers for not doing anything to mark the anniversary of D-Day or the Normandy invasion. And it’s true, he didn’t. He marked the day last year, but didn’t this year. So, Obama is an ass, right?

As it happens, he’s doing exactly what every president does: he marks the occasion on special anniversaries, like last year when it was the 65th anniversary of D-Day, and like Bush did on the 60th anniversary. But Bush only observed D-Day twice in his eight years–in 2001 and in 2004, and nothing was made of it the other 6 years when he did nothing. When Obama followed suit this year, it’s a “snub,” and Obama is an insensitive cad, insulting veterans, America, and living up to his Hitler image.

The ODS (Obama Double Standard™) was also an issue recently when it was found that the Obama administration had offered a job to Joe Sestak to coax him from running against Arlen Spector; the right wing thought this was worthy of special investigation as if it were a major scandal, despite that kind of deal being an everyday occurrence in D.C. politics and there being nothing wrong with it. Similarly, Obama was castigated by the right wing for not going to Arlington on Memorial Day, despite the fact that presidents often don’t go.

Not to say that any of this is new, or a surprise. Just noting what others are noting about now, which is that Obama is being attacked for stuff which is done (or not done) all the time by presidents and nobody cares. It’s a double standard, it’s hypocritical, it’s dishonest, it’s stupid. In short, the right-wing SOP.

Something I’m hearing a lot is people excusing Republicans for the Arizona immigration law because a few Republicans are speaking out against it. For example, take this diversion by Jake Tapper from This Week:

To be fair, to conservatives, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, a conservative Republican, and Florida Congressman Connie Mack have had some tough words about parts of this law … these are conservative Republicans, nobody would question Bob McDonnell’s bona fides as a conservative, and they are voicing serious concern about those laws.

Tapper, who leans to the right himself, said this as the conservatives at the table nodded sagely and voiced assent. But the whole claim is BS, frankly. Think about it: if a Democratic legislature in a Democratic state passed a bill banning guns, and a Democratic governor signed it into law while a large majority of Democrats across the country approved, would conservatives agree that Democrats were not responsible just because Brian Schweitzer and Jim Webb spoke out against it? Please.

Republicans thought up this law. They passed it, against a solid wall of Democratic votes. A Republican governor signed it. 75% of Republicans who have heard of the law approve of it, and are the only ones I hear defending it. That there are a few right-wingers who see the true ramifications of the law and object hardly make this not a Republican matter. This may be the right wing of the Republican Party, but it is the Republican Party which produced it, and most Republicans approve of it.

What we’re seeing is Republicans trying to disavow the more radical actions of what is frankly the majority of their party while not really doing anything to stop or reverse those actions, so they can appeal to a broader base and not be taken to account for what the party is as a whole. Good midterm election strategy, but not the truth.

Bill Maher, in that same round table discussion, made a few excellent points about the racism inherent in the law. Imagine a law, maybe based on militia activity, that would pressure the police to pull over white males in pickup trucks indiscriminately, asking them for their papers and jailing them if they fail to produce. Like they’d be OK with that, wouldn’t scream “reverse racism” or some government plot to oppress them, and create widely-believed conspiracy theories about Obama and this is what happens when you put a black guy in the White House. The Tea Party crowd would be in an uproar about that, unlike now, when we’re not hearing a peep out of most of them. No, only when it’s people of another color whose rights are trampled when 3 out of 4 of in the party as a whole give hearty applause. As Maher pointed out, if the large masses of hysterical, gun-toting radicals calling for government overthrow were almost all black, you think they would be treated like the teabaggers are? Would Fox News be organizing for them and upholding their Second Amendment rights? Hell no.

But, remember: IOKIYAR. And being white helps a lot. Not that the two are different data sets, mostly.

In the fallout from the failed crotch-bomb plot over Detroit, many have pointed out the fact that right-wingers have been particularly dishonest and hypocritical. Conservatives have been putting outright blame on Obama for the failure to catch this beforehand, whereas they blamed Clinton for the 9/11 attacks, not Bush; where Obama is to blame for an intelligence agency ignoring the father’s warning, Bush was somehow not to blame for ignoring a plethora of warning signs, several of which were delivered directly to him. Where Bush was hailed as “keeping us safe” even while the Shoe Bomber, in almost identical a fashion to the Crotch Bomber, attempted to blow up a plane to the U.S., Obama is criticized for not keeping us safe. And while Republicans excoriate the Obama administration for the lack of security, they brazenly ignore the fact that they themselves voted down more funding for airport security. Not to mention the fact that criticizing Bush on terror or security was seen as near-treasonous, while criticizing the president today is apparently not at all a problem.

I look at these criticisms and reflect on why I don’t blog on politics quite as much now: it’s all trite. Of course they’re acting like that. Of course the facts don’t matter one bit. Of course Republicans are being hypocritical, lying bags of scum; hasn’t that been all too well established? Just like it’s been established that Democratic politicians are generally weak-kneed sissies afraid of their own shadows.

The pattern is pretty simple: anything a conservative does: good; anything a liberal does: bad–even if the two acts are identical. Just claim they’re different somehow, ignore logic and consistency, blame any evidence to the contrary as an artifact of the “Liberal Media,” and there you have it. The neoconservative narrative. Throw in some social religion for further control, a few more tax cuts for the rich, disregard a few more civil liberties (while always steering clear of the control-irrelevant gun ownership), deepen the dependence on corporations, and you’re getting close to seeing the overall sheep-herding architecture of the New Conservative Society. Within that twisted framework, even Sarah Palin makes perfect sense.

It’s hard to express as often as I would like the absolute horror we barely dodged last November. While tea-baggers and assorted wingnuts rant and rage and rend their hair over imagined, hare-brained delusions about Obama, the fact is, he’s been one of the most respectable figures in the Oval Office for quite some time. Before he came to office, the wingnuts created out of whole cloth a host of racist names and stereotypes for relatives populating his family; none were true.

Bush 43… well, he was Bush. Himself a former substance abuser, the family has lots of bad apples and skeletons, and way too much drama, between his wayward twin daughters and the brother involved in banking scandals, something which plagued the elder Bush 41 as well. Clinton had his affairs and other assorted scandals. Reagan had a dysfunctional family, and Carter had brother Billy. Ford’s wife had substance abuse. Vice presidents have added their own woes, though usually they are less colorful than the primary, they can be a distraction when something does turn up.

Compared to most recent presidents, Obama easily sails above the rest and wins hands-down as the most respectable in his personal life.

However, had we elected McCain… or, more to the point, in a few years, if somehow Palin were to be elected… Holy crap. I blogged on this before, the white-trash soap opera that is life in the Palin compound, and it just gets more and more lurid.

What’s new in the week’s episode? Well, Levi says that he has the goods on Sarah, stuff that would destroy her… while he signs on to pose Full Monty in Playgirl magazine. As you recall from previous episodes, Levi was the father of Bristol’s illegitimate baby, born out of wedlock after mommy raised Bristol on abstinence-only principles. Propped up to be Bristol’s husband for show on the campaign trail, that quickly fell apart and since then the Palins and Johnstons have been feudin’ something’ fierce. Yes, Palin would bring back real American family values to the White House! After those sluts Sasha and Malia have befouled the First Family’s abode, think how refreshing it’d be to have the nice Palins in residence.

I know, I know–melodrama is aside from the important issues. The reason I bring this up, however, is the same reason people make hay of the adulterous and other sexual dalliances among right-wingers: not because the acts themselves are really anything worth paying attention to, but because they highlight the rather stark hypocrisy inherent in right-wing culture.

In this case, it’s that the right wing constantly makes crap up about Obama in order to look down on him, while they adore someone like Palin, whose personal-life antics are extraordinarily scandalous.

Imagine if Obama’s daughter were 17 and became pregnant with some high-school jock after Obama went lecturing everyone about not having sex before marriage, and that after trying to effect a shotgun wedding, that fell apart and the boy starts spewing dirt and a whole-out family feud erupts. The right wing would experience a year-long orgasm of strutting the Superior Dance, while endlessly going on about how Obama is disgracing the White House and should resign.

But they can’t wait to elect someone whose family scandals are exactly that and far, far more.

Imagine that Michelle had belonged to a political party that promoted secession. Imagine that her brother were arrested on felony charges, or the boy who knocked up their daughter posed nude while his mother got arrested on drug charges.

Seriously, IOKIYAR.

Atrios is making an excellent point.

In 2004, MoveOn.org sponsored a contest called “Bush in 30 Seconds,” asking for people to submit 30-second ads which criticized the Bush administration. The videos were submitted in an automatic fashion and were not reviewed by MoveOn.org before they were visible to the public. Two of the ads compared the president to Hitler and the Nazis. The reaction (Fox News story):

Republican groups and Jewish organizations expressed outrage over the ad, which has been removed from the MoveOn.org Web site. The Republican National Committee (search) called on all nine Democratic candidates to condemn the ads.

RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie (search) called the ad, “the worst and most vile form of political hate speech.” …

MoveOn.org noted that those ads were voted down by the group’s members and the public, who submitted nearly 3 million critiques while choosing the 15 finalist entries.

“We agree that the two ads in question were in poor taste and deeply regret that they slipped through our screening process,” the statement said. “In the future, if we publish or broadcast raw material, we will create a more effective filtering system.”

Right-wing organizations such as RightMarch.com issued ad campaigns demanding apologies. Other right-wing politicians and pollsters attacked the reference, calling it “hateful, vitriolic rhetoric” and worse. Right-wing pundits and representatives went ballistic–and claimed that Republicans would never stoop to calling the president a Nazi:

“[The Hitler references are evidince that] right now in America the Democratic party is being held captive by the far, far left.” –Bill O’Reilly

“You guys on the left are going so far over the cliff. You’re making comparisons to the president and Adolf Hitler.” –Sean Hannity

“If they stoop to the kind of despicable tactic like morphing a candidate into Adolf Hitler, yes, absolutely, I will tell you right here on the air. Have me back if any organization does that, I would repudiate it.” –Ed Gillespie, Chair of the Republican National Committee.

Republicans must really respect the office of the president; after all, this hyperbolic outrage was just because two ordinary Americans made 30-second videos which compared Bush to Hitler. MoveOn did not approve the ads nor did they air them (though Gillespie and other Republicans made sure the ads saw lots of air time), and no prominent liberal politician, pollster, or pundit even came close to endorsing them. MoveOn even apologized and made sure the content was taken down.

Well, Ed, time to get your soapbox out: four years later, the president is being called a Nazi again. Except this time, it’s not just by a few jokers with video cameras, it’s by a prominent radio personality, the unofficial head of the Republican Party, apparently with the full approval of his network, which is not punishing him:

“Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, also ruled by dictate. His Cabinet only met once. One day. That was it. Hitler said he didn’t need to meet with his Cabinet; he represented the will of the people. He was called the messiah. He said the people spoke through him. …

”Obama’s got a health care logo that’s right out of Adolf Hitler’s playbook. Now, what are the similarities between the Democrat Party of today and the Nazi Party in Germany? … Obama is asking citizens to rat each other out like Hitler did.“ –Rush Limbaugh

And Limbaugh is not the only one. Beck is making the comparison, and numerous right-wingers are making thinly veiled comparisons, some going with the outright message.

Ed? Ed? Where are you? Sean Hannity? Want to comment?

Of course not. Because It’s OK If You’re A Republican.

Patrick Ruffini, a Republican, argues that Mark Sanford should not resign, and complains that Republicans are unfairly put upon:

At the core of the Sanford and Ensign episodes is the cloud of “hypocrisy” that hangs over any Republican who strays from the bonds of their marriage. (Quickly forgetting that all who commit adultery are hypocrites, having taken a solemn vow of marriage.) Because Democrats are perceived as more socially libertine, they get off easier.

This is a structural disadvantage that, on the margins, hurts Republican officeholders, forcing them into resignation or disgrace more easily than their equally adulterous Democratic counterparts.

Simply put, it is a strategic error to sanctify the idea that it’s worse when Republicans cheat. The hypocrisy charge exacts a double penalty on Republicans where none exists for Democrats — first, in the accusation of hypocrisy itself, and second, in the media whipping social conservatives into a frenzy in a bid to belatedly “enforce” their moral code — exactly the thing the secular media believes you shouldn’t do 364 days out of the year — to hound a Republican out of office.

Some will argue that conservatives should enforce a higher standard upon themselves. In cases of corruption or illegality, I have agreed. The stench of systemic corruption can be grist for severe electoral losses, as it was in 2006, and from a party-strategic perspective must be purged immediately. But adultery is different — a human failing that strikes Democrats and Republicans equally, and one in which there is a certain presumption of privacy unless there is illegal behavior (Clinton, Spitzer) or it affects job performance (Sanford). Do Republicans want to purge their ranks based exclusively on a test of personal moral conduct? How exactly does this help solve the (inaccurate, IMO) perception of the Republican Party as intolerant and dominated by the religious right?

There are many things wrong with what this guy is claiming. Let’s go through the list.

The hypocrisy charge exacts a double penalty on Republicans where none exists for Democrats

What Ruffini glosses over is the key point in why Republicans pay a double penalty: they exalt themselves as the party or moral virtue, they claim they are the guardians of family values, and they conspicuously make one of the greatest issues in politics today the idea of the sanctity of the institution of marriage and how gay marriage threatens that sanctity. Mark Sanford himself was a strong opponent of gay marriage, and was even scheduled to be a speaker at the “Values Voters Summit” which would focus, among other things, on the sanctity of marriage. Not to mention that Sanford, like most other Republicans guilty of adultery, is on the record openly criticizing Bill Clinton and others for their adultery. Democrats in general do none of these things–and if one did and was caught in adultery, he or she would be just as–if not more–sharply condemned for the hypocrisy.

In short, the “double penalty” Ruffini complains about is amply justified and richly deserved.

Because Democrats are perceived as more socially libertine, they get off easier.

What, like Bill Clinton? John Edwards “got off” only because he was no longer in any position of responsibility when he was discovered–he was no longer a candidate nor an office-holder. But quite frankly, I don’t see any evidence of Democrats “getting off easier” (no pun intended, I am sure), and Ruffini conveniently provides none.

This is a structural disadvantage that, on the margins, hurts Republican officeholders, forcing them into resignation or disgrace more easily than their equally adulterous Democratic counterparts.

Really? Like Vitter, who didn’t resign? Or Craig, who refused to resign? Ensign doesn’t seem likely to, just as Sanford likely won’t. The only Republican adulterer of note who’s resigned recently for his affair is Eliot Spitzer. (Oops. Spitzer is a Democrat. Seriously, that was not an intentional goof. It only just happens to make my point even sharper.) Fact is, Republicans usually don’t resign when they’re caught in adulterous affairs, even when the hypocrisy in their particular case is as striking as it is in Sanford’s. The claim by right-wingers that Democrats are not hurt or are even helped by adultery is specious and unsupported.

…the media whipping social conservatives into a frenzy in a bid to belatedly “enforce” their moral code — exactly the thing the secular media believes you shouldn’t do 364 days out of the year…

The obligatory attack on the secular liberal media. Again, no evidence or examples of exactly how the media (1) is secular, (2) pushes a moral code, (3) fails to live up to that code, or (4) believes people shouldn’t abide by that code. As you can see, Ruffini’s statement here is convoluted on inspection. It’s what happens when you have a long-standing criticism that is based on an unstructured, unevidenced, and ultimately false set of accusations.

But adultery is different — a human failing that strikes Democrats and Republicans equally…

Here’s the old False Equivalency charge. Initially used most by the media in attempts to be seen as “not liberal,” it has been picked up by conservatives trying to explain off all the Republican malfeasance: if Republicans are found guilty of something, claim that Democrats do it just as much, so it’s a problem with politics or people in general, and not a Republican issue. This was rife during the last election; McCain and Obama went equally negative, right? Or how about the old biased media canard–compare Fox News with Dan Rather and the National Guard story–the two are equal, right? The Bush administration guilty of torture? Hey, Nancy Pelosi is just as guilty, right? On and on and on.

But in this case, does it stand up? After all, people are people, right? Well, if so, then it should be supported by the facts. And in this case–not really. Look at senators who are in office or have recently held office. Who are the ones with a history of adultery? On the Republican side, there is Mark Sanford, John Ensign, David Vitter, John McCain, Larry Craig, Bob Dole, and Elizabeth Dole (they were in an adulterous affair before they got married). All adulterers. On the Democratic side of the aisle? John Edwards is the only one I can find.

Keep in mind also that two of the Republican front-runners in the last election–including the actual candidate–were not only adulterers, but serial adulterers, and Gingrich, who was rumored to want to run and is likely going to in 2012 is also an adulterer. The non-titular head of the Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh, is an adulterer. The fact is, adultery is conspicuously rife in conservative circles–as is divorce and remarriage. There is the general stereotype and assumption that Democrats are the philanderers, but the evidence says otherwise.

How exactly does this help solve the (inaccurate, IMO) perception of the Republican Party as intolerant and dominated by the religious right?

Inaccurate in your opinion? Your evidence, Mr. Ruffini? None? Gee whiz, really? I wonder why not.

The thing is, Republicans are usually the ones calling for such people to resign because of the marital infidelity. Democrats in general tend to forgive the adultery part altogether. At my office, which tends to be pretty liberal, the attitude was that there was no problem with the guy’s adultery, but leaving his post for five days like that was unforgivable.

If Sanford had not committed the hypocrisy–had he publicly forgiven others who had affairs, had he not made the sanctity of marriage a political issue–then there would be little if any criticism on the left about him specifically, save for those who did not know his views and/or spoke of conservative values in general. Had he not gone AWOL for five days and lied every which way about it in silly and stupid way, there would be no criticism on that, either.

If you have an affair, that’s a personal issue; it doesn’t speak well for your character, to be sure, but it doesn’t speak to your performance in your job. That tends to be the liberal view of the issue, which is why liberals are not tagged as hypocrites as much when caught in adultery. It is decidedly not the conservative view on the issue, which is why conservatives are seen as hypocrites when they have affairs.

Near the end of his article, Ruffini stops dancing around the phrase and gets to his central thesis, calling this a “double standard.” But this is not a double standard; a double standard is when you have two different sets of consequences for the same failing.

If I say that drinking is bad and you say it’s no big deal, and we’re both caught drinking, is it unfair to call me a hypocrite? Nope. If the shoe fits and all that.

When visiting Germany, Obama shunned plans to visit a concentration camp, instead insisting on a visit to a cemetery where Nazi SS soldiers are interred. Even after it became clear that no U.S. soldiers were buried at the cemetery, Obama defended his decision to visit the site and not to visit a concentration camp: “Hey, let’s remember that the soldiers in the Nazi SS were victims, just like the Jews killed in the Holocaust. They were forced to carry out Hitler’s orders, so I’m sure they suffered just as much.” Obama later, reluctantly, added a quick stop at a concentration camp to his itinerary.

Oh, no wait–I have that mixed up. It was Reagan who did everything I wrote about above. In 1985. But just think of how the right-wingers would be reacting if it had been Obama and not their savior!