The press had a proverbial field day back in 2008 when a few folks attending McCain/Palin rallies shouted ugly comments from the crowd.
The most famous “kill him” incident was eventually disproven by the Secret Service even though the meme had legs – it even made its way into the thoroughly false HBO telefilm “Game Change.” The media’s willingness to use an aggressive voice or two in GOP-friendly crowds to taint both the ticket and its supporters was obvious – and gleeful.
So why is the very same media silent so far over President Barack Obama’s speech yesterday which included this:
“I went to the speaker’s home town,” Obama said, referring to a trip to House Speaker John Boehner’s battleground state of Ohio, “stood under a bridge that was crumbling.”
“Let him drive on it!” somebody shouted.
“Maybe he doesn’t drive anymore,” Obama joked.
Milbank, the same scribe who started the false “kill him” meme, buries this nugget deep in his most recent column, but he certainly doesn’t castigate Obama or the president’s booster for the comment.
Let’s be clear. Obama supporters shouldn’t be tainted by a single offensive comment, and one could make the case Obama defused the hateful rhetoric with a joke.
But that wasn’t the case for the McCain/Palin ticket, so why the double standard?
We know why, of course, but it bears repeating all the same for anyone not fully convinced liberal media bias is real, pervasive and about to get much worse as the presidential campaign intensifies.