America's hypocritical p.c. mullahs

Before Sept. 11, right-wingers denounced politically correct "censorship." Now they're applauding the muzzling of left-wing war critics.

By Eric Boehlert

Nov 9, 2001 | The war on terrorism has produced some strange reversals. For instance, one year ago Pakistan's Gen. Pervez Musharraf was an isolated, ostracized general who appointed himself president. Today, he's welcoming the British prime minister and American cabinet members, all seeking the ear of the influential Afghan neighbor.

Perhaps no wartime U-turn, though, has been more surprising than the conservative wing's sudden, lusty embrace of political correctness in its effort to stamp out public dissent regarding the war on terrorism. The same right-wing ideologues who spent the last 10 years sounding alarms about the chilling effect of attempts to curb unpopular speech have loudly applauded as college administrators have denounced anti-war professors and advertisers have boycotted TV personalities who dared to make unpatriotic comments.

Before Sept. 11, when those exact roles were reversed and conservatives were the ones playing the victim, they wrapped themselves in the mantle of the First Amendment and cried censorship. After Sept. 11, public figures who are feeling the heat from inflammatory comments are merely getting what they deserve.

Writing for the Wall Street Journal editorial page on Monday, in a piece dubbed "Why do America-haters think they're entitled to freedom from speech?" Gregg Easterbrook summed up the new spin: "What's at work here is a fundamental misunderstanding of the First Amendment. It guarantees a right to free speech, but hardly guarantees speech will be without cost."

He noted the First Amendment was originally construed to protect anti-government speakers from imprisonment, but not from "denunciation, ostracism, loss of employment," and that unpopular speakers had to assume certain societal risks.

Too bad he, or somebody else at the Journal's usually p.c.-obsessed editorial page, hadn't clued conservatives in to that fact during the last decade, when they were so busy equating speech criticism (i.e. political correctness) with censorship. Even though they never suggested the government was trying to curtail their speech (the only body that can legally censor), conservatives argued that because their brothers-in-arms were occasionally denounced and ostracized they were being "censored."

No less of an authority than Rush Limbaugh himself made that proclamation earlier this year. "I think political correctness is censorship," he told Fox News Channel. "Political correctness is attempting to forge a common opinion on any issue at the expense of others."

That's a mighty loose interpretation of censorship. But at the time it served the purpose for conservatives, and their odd fascination with victimization.

For instance, last year when the new television show from controversial conservative radio host Dr. Laura Schlessinger faced an advertiser revolt in response to protests staged by gay groups, conservatives were sure of one thing: It was censorship.

Syndicated columnist Cal Thomas: "She [was] censored with a fervor our book-burning ancestors would have admired."

Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly: "This is blatant censorship. That's an infringement on freedom of speech."

Washington Times editorial: "[Gay groups] will use the shrill and censorious power of political correctness to bully the advertisers."

In the wake of Sept. 11 though, those rules have been modified. Bill Maher, host of ABC's late night "Politically Incorrect," ran into a buzz saw of criticism for remarks he made on Sept. 17 when, amid a debate about whether the terrorists who crashed the jets into the World Trade Center were "cowards," he argued, "We have been the cowards. Lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away, that's cowardly." (He later apologized.)

Next Page: Blatant hypocrisy, wrapped up in the flag

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