By Quin Hillyer at The Washington Examiner (links are embedded in the headlines);
To Trump Supporters: Two Wrongs Do Not Make a Right:
It is long past time for leaders of the conservative movement, the conservative commentariat, and the Republican Party to begin insisting again on standards of decency, rather than embracing double standards or the morally fraught resort to “ whataboutism.”
Almost daily, leaders or pundits or activists, who formerly seemed to know better, now deflect criticism of misbehavior by Trump or his supporters by irrelevant comparisons – as if some earlier offenses by liberals excuse today’s transgressions by conservatives’ own side.
For example, it doesn’t matter if “our side” does bad stuff, because we can ask “what about” what the Left did at another point.
So, for example, without saying a word against the vile behavior by Trump fans against press covering a rally in Tampa, one conservative activist belittled the complaints of one of the abused reporters by tweeting that “it would have been really traumatizing” to have been shot at like Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., was last year. (The activist is a friend, so I won’t name him, especially because I could use dozens or hundreds of examples interchangeably and it’s not fair to single him out.)…..
Both Sides Guilty of Double Standards:
Fresh off last week’s jeremiad against double standards and outright hypocrisy on the political Right (my own side), let it be said that the liberal media continues to demonstrate at least as much dishonest inconsistency as do the Trump cultists.
What is needed, from all sides, is a conscious, self-critical commitment to procedures or questions that will allow everyone to behave with consistency and integrity – especially in the news media.
Let’s start with two recent examples of rather obvious double standards by the establishment media, just in the last week. First was when the New York Times stood by its hiring of new editorial board writer Sarah Jeong despite a voluminous history – not just a few random examples, but plenty – of viciously racist anti-white tweets and other statements. As The Weekly Standard aptly noted, this stance by the Times was an obvious departure from its own prior history and standards when dealing with people not left of center….
