In an op-ed ^[1] in last Sunday’s Los Angeles Times, I teasingly challenged liberals to—gasp!—actually listen to Rush Limbaugh with an open mind. The reaction was predictable, but no less hilarious for that. Email after email practically boiling with viciousness, foul language and hate, accused Limbaugh—and me—of being vicious, foul-mouthed and hateful. Don’t these people own mirrors? I mean, don’t they ever look at their reflections and think, “Wait… Limbaugh does a radio show about public figures and ideas… Klavan writes an op-ed in a newspaper… then I send a personal email full of four-letter words, ad hominem attacks and vitriol… Oh, hey, I get it… the real shmuck here… is me!!!”

Okay, I’m not holding my breath. But the left’s ability to act hatefully while in the very act of accusing the right of hatefulness does point to yet another of the many ways the media skew our political discourse. In the mainstream media—the left’s media, I mean—the standard for what is hateful is completely different for the right and left.

Jon Stewart shouts the F-word on air at Governor Sarah Palin, oh, what a witty fellow he is, how outrageous, how puckishly he bends the rules!

Rush Limbaugh hopes Barack Obama’s attempt to destroy our free market system fails—honk! he’s hateful.

Bill Maher’s film insipidly insults easily targeted religious people, he’s “brilliant,” says Variety, “incendiary.”

Ann Coulter points out the fact that fatherless children are the source of most of the nation’s crime, suicide and child behavioral disorders—honk! She’s mean to single mothers. How hateful.

Hollywood makes fictional movies accusing our soldiers of being rapists, murderers and fools even while they’re in the field defending us– hurrah, it’s awards time!

Geert Wilders makes a short documentary on the actual murderous acts inspired by actual passages in the Koran. You guessed it—honk!—he’s hateful.

Leftists have always confused their good intentions with actual virtue. The tyranny allowed to spread by left wing appeasement, the neighborhoods and families destroyed by their corrupt welfare programs, the millions of lives snuffed out by environmentalist hysteria—these don’t show up on their moral scorecards because they meant so very well. Indeed, so swathed are they in the warm glow of their purposes, any question about the actual results of their actions strikes them as shockingly cruel. A mere rough joke, an outrageous remark, the least untoward language from a conservative—and they reel back, appalled by the display of pure meanness.

What can you do? A conservative must either walk on eggshells or tell the truth loud and proud. You choose.

OH AND HEY…

I’m supposed to be on Fox & Friends Monday morning talking about the Rush piece.  I’m scheduled for 7:45 AM EST.  Even I won’t be awake at that time, so if you get a chance to see it, let me know how it was.