‘Foulmouthed’ Wonkette and the Don Imus Double Standard

As liberals in the media call for the firing of well-known conservative radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh in the wake of the Don Imus controversy, none seems willing to turn the politically correct microscope on those espousing views from the left.

With that in mind, Lisa De Pasquale, Conservative Political Action Conference director for the American Conservative Union, published an article at Human Events Tuesday wonderfully illustrating the obvious double standard between what liberal media members can say or write versus their colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

The target of De Pasquale’s disaffection was the blogger formerly known as “Wonkette,” Time.com’s Ana Marie Cox (emphasis added throughout):

For those that don’t know, Wonkette is basically Washington, DC’s raunchier version of Star magazine, like a political PerezHilton.com. Ana Marie Cox, who began writing as Wonkette in 2003, infamously broke the story of former congressional staffer Jessica Cutler’s blog about her sexual conquests. When Cutler talked about her, um, relationship with a Republican chief of staff, Cox posted all the pictures she could find of Republican and male chiefs of staff.

Yet, Cox’s writings win her praise rather than scorn:

There’s another double standard that’s not being discussed. Cox (and the current Wonkette bloggers) never hesitate to make crude, politically and factually incorrect comments about women. If she (or any woman) would have said “nappy-headed hos” it would be called catty not racist. Or gossipy instead of sexist.

This is akin to Democrat politicians and “civil rights leaders” being allowed to make clearly racist remarks about anybody they want without raising an eyebrow from the PC crowd. Of course, such leeway is certainly extended to crude remarks about anyone on the right:

Conservative women like Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Katherine Harris and Michele Bachman have been insulted in the same vain by Wonkette. A picture of Ann Coulter speaking is captioned on Wonkette.com, “Nothin’ but Diet Coke, nicotine, and blow in her system.” A Wonkette “operative” asks if Michelle Malkin will be doing a sexual trick on her videoblog. Katherine Harris’s physical attributes (her “eyes” as Imus calls them) are discussed and she is called a “street whore.”

On the President, Wonkette writes, “We didn't accuse George Bush of being gay because he holds his hand in a ‘nelly way.’ We accused him of being gay because he likes ****.”

How clever. Think a conservative could get away with that in this environment?

Regardless of the answer, De Pasquale marvelously concluded:

Don Imus’s critics complained that his supporters, including CBS and MSNBC up until a week ago, enabled his foulmouthed behavior because he brought in listeners and commercial dollars. The foulmouthed Ana Marie Cox doesn’t sell books and probably hasn’t sold any additional Time subscriptions. What does that say about her enablers?

Anyone want to answer De Pasquale’s question?