Another Media Double Standard: Dems Also Use 'Target Maps' for Election Fundraising

April 1st, 2010 2:55 PM

As we've reported here at NewsBusters, the mainstream media has been in a tizzy over Sarah Palin's potentially violence-engendering "target map" for the upcoming midterm elections.

Of course, what the liberal media isn't telling you is that the Democratic Leadership Council used similar "target maps" in the 2004 election. 

Verum Serum blogged about this yesterday morning (h/t Gateway Pundit):

The map appears on this page of the Democratic Leadership Committee [sic] website (dated 2004 during the Bush years). I guess we could argue over whether the DLC counts as “senior party officials” but they’re certainly as much a part of the party as Palin who, after all, currently holds no elected office.

Granted these are bulls-eyes instead of gun-sights, and the targets are states not individual congressmen. But we’re really splitting hairs at this point. This map and the language it uses (Behind enemy lines!) are, if anything, more militant than what Palin used in her Facebook posting.

But wait, there’s more!

When Palin’s map became an issue, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, leader of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), rushed on MSNBC to denounce it, telling Chris Matthews:

I really think that that is crossing a line…In this particular environment I think it’s really dangerous to try and make your point in that particular way because there are people who are taking that kind of thing seriously.

Really, Chris? So what do you think about this map [from the DCCC, of which Van Hollen is the chairman]?

Each one of those red targets represents a “Targeted Republican” like this one: