Crosshairs aren't new

There is a great deal of noise these days about how mean spirited our criticism has been toward our politicians.  Everyone is on high alert whenever anyone talks about "crosshairs" or words with any sort of double meaning.

My personal observation has been that the left has redefined criticism as hate speech.  Disrespect of the president happened all the time, but became a "civility" issue in January of 2009.  Hmmm.

Dick Cheney was on WLS radio yesterday and he was asked the question about this lack of civility.  His answer was an interesting one.  He said he was ill-qualified to judge the question, but that he recalled that when he first moved his family to Washington in 1968 there were 14,000 US troops in the streets of DC.  Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King had been killed that year and people were marching in the streets all the time. 

I remember those days.  I recall civil right marches, anti-war marches and feminist marches. 

I remember regular burnings of the flag and effigies of the president.  You don't get more uncivil than that!

The Tea Party has a reputation for hauling out their own trash and policing the area to pick up the garbage left by others.  And yet they are painted as hateful.

The real problem is that they are tugging at the leftist narrative and challenging the progressive movement on its corrupt leadership and self-serving motives.

And in case you hadn't noticed, the people blowing things up aren't conservatives.