Horns and Tails, Plumbers and Kids

The McCain campaign would never use a persons name, politics without their permission or any regard to the exposure(LOL). The Left harped on the use of Heart or Foo Fighter songs without their permission, but licensing laws make them public domain with a price. But these two groups are staunch liberals, why not use a Hank Williams Jr song about his families debauchery...

Polimom . . .

The Frost story is even worse . . . IMHO . . . as it involves kids.

That is absolutely where I draw the line. I thought how some bloggers tried to use Obama's kids against him in the primary (some "scandal" I have forgotten) was out of bounds.

Similarly, Sullivan's Ahab-like like obsession with "Baby Trig" was appalling.

It doesn't matter if Obama has his kids onstage at the convention, or Palin has "Trig", or the Frost kids are photographed . . . don't use kids to attack the parents.

I pretty much agree with this. And I think Polimom's response to the formerly reasonable MVDG in the comments at her own site really nailed it down.

(I also agree with Marlowe about Sullivan's off-the-deep-end stupidity about Palin's baby. Her baby is a baby, for god's sake.)

As MVDG stated in his response to Polimom and others who raised the comparison of lefty/Joe the Plumber attack to righty/Graeme Frost attack, he condemned Malkin and others at that time (I'll note, not that anyone asked, that I did as well and that shows up in the old blog post that MVDG linked to about the Frost incident.)

One reason I think the criticism that MVDG made about the totalitarianism of the left in America right now is valid is because there seems to be an absence of criticism of those tactics. Once on left wing blog starts in on personal dirt digging, others join in, and then instead of moderate blogs going "whoa, that's really pretty sleazy", they instead say "Well, Joe the Plumber should have seen this coming!" or "McCain set him up for it, so it's fair game to expose all of this!"

Where is there someone who supports Obama who can straight up say, "The personal dirt being dug up on Joe the Plumber doesn't help my kids...it's a distraction?" If there are left leaning, pro-Obama sites saying this, I'll be glad to acknowledge that if someone will point them out to me.

CStanley --

You're not happy with me because instead of specifically calling out the left bloggers who are saying ugly things, I chose to focus on the mutual viciousness of the blogosphere generally? Somehow, by taking this approach, I've confirmed the totalitarianism on the left for you...?

"Totalitarianism," CStanley?

That word doesn't mean what you (or MVDG) seem to think it means.

Polimom's comment is a symptom of moderation.

I complained about the attacks on Joe as well in a comment trail here, but I don't have a political blog of my own nor do I wish to. I've thought about a government blog where people are to talk about good and bad governmental policies. But politics... a couple comments a day on TMV is enough.

Dear Mom,

I am willing to accept your scolding, to a degree, for all my fiscal conservative siblings who could not make it to this family meeting.

To the extent any of us ever uttered unkind words to or about Graeme, let us feel your maternal wrath. However, since I believe most of our childish tantrums were directed toward commenting on the level of income/assets of the child's household, I will submit the point was directly relevant to the policy matter in question at the time.

Now, however, our cousins, the Bolshevik family, are arguing that a person's trade license, divorce and tax violations are germane to arguing the merits of the policy of wealth redistribution through taxation.

Sorry, mom, for being so prodigal, but I perceive another degree of separation here.

Well, I think the comments say pretty much all there is to be said. A small number think attacking Joe the Plumber and Graeme the Kid is not necessary, but far more think that whatever team they are on generally acted better while the other team acted worse. All that's left for the latter group is to insert the name of the bad guy. Sometimes, it seems you could do fill in the blank comments for partisans and save them lots of time.

I haven't heard of anyone on the Left spying on "Joe Plumbers' kitchen countertops to verify his income. Maybe he and the missus will donate kidneys or sell their house to afford the plumbing <s>health care</s> company.