The one thing I love about liberal columnists is how they complain about people spewing invective as they spew invective.

Such was deliciously the case in New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd's offering Wednesday when she went after Rush Limbaugh:

Years ago, when I dubbed Dubya “The Boy Emperor,” Limbaugh spewed a stream of personal invective about me that embarrassed even my mother, a Limbaugh fan.

In a classic example of the liberal double standard, Dowd didn't have any problem whatsoever spewing invective of her own.

Better still, in a piece about America's leading conservative talk radio host, Dowd felt the need to also attack George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin, and Liz Cheney.

Let me count the ways:

Noted Dick Cheney-basher Chris Matthews, on Thursday's "Hardball," finally found an area of common ground with the former Vice President – his endorsement of moderate Texas Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison over Rick Perry in the Texas governor's race. However, even a bit of praise from the MSNBC host came with a vicious shot, as Matthews sneered, "You might think an endorsement from Dick Cheney would be like a dinner invite from Uday and Qusay Hussein, but not in Texas."

After making the comparison to the brothers who infamously tortured Iraqi athletes for losing on the field, Matthews went on to ponder: "Can the torture man boost her backing from conservatives in beating secessionist governor Rick Perry?" [audio available here]

The following Matthews outbursts were aired on the October 29, "Hardball":

Golf, too?  If there was one sport you'd think might be immune from the liberal slant that has invaded too much of sports reporting, it's golf.  The fairways-and-greens guys are known for generally being Republicans.

But out of the blue [green?] on a Golf Channel show this afternoon, host Brandel Chamblee took a cheap shot at Dick Cheney with a rather nasty hunting reference.

Chamblee, who before retiring from the PGA Tour had one win in 370 career starts, was discussing with co-host Rich Lerner the putting woes of the affable Jason Gore . . .

Last Wednesday, former vice president Dick Cheney received the Keeper of the Flame award from the Center for Security Policy in Washington, where he denounced President Obama for dithering on Afghanistan. This sent several left-wing columnists and radio hosts into a rage. But there’s rage, and then there’s the wild ravings of host Mike Malloy, who was thinking Cheney was a baby-eater:

Cheney, by the way looks very ruddy; I couldn't get over that like he must have feasted on a Jewish baby, or a Muslim baby; he must have sent his people out to get one and bring it back so he could drink its blood, because that's what somebody like Cheney does to get that ruddy look.

On Sunday’s CBS Evening News, political analyst John Dickerson brushed aside criticism from former Vice President Dick Cheney that the Obama administration was “dithering” on Afghanistan: “...it puts Cheney out there as a kind of boogie man the administration can point to. He’s not terribly popular outside of conservative circles...in some ways, Dick Cheney is a gift for the White House.”

Dickerson, who is a contributing writer for the left-leaning blog Slate.com, has also filled in for Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer twice in the last six months, on the October 18 and July 5 broadcasts. He was responding to a question from Sunday Evening News anchor Russ Mitchell, who cited Cheney and wondered: “Are you hearing other sentiments out there along those lines?” Dickerson claimed: “Well, there’s been some elite opinion about the pause in the President’s thinking.”

An October 9 CBS News poll showed that there was more than simply “elite opinion” on the subject: “President Obama has a slide in his approval ratings on his handling of the situation in Afghanistan. In April, 58 percent approved of his handling of the conflict; by August, that number had fallen to 48 percent. In the most recent survey it has hit its lowest level yet, 42 percent.” An October 18 ABC News/ Washington Post poll placed public approval of the President’s handling of Afghanistan at 45 percent, with 47 percent disapproving of his handling.

Three weeks after their gushing praise of President Obama's meeting with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the media have taken a cue from the lack of action that followed.

It was a good run while it lasted.

Word from the conflict became more dire almost by the day as Obama's cabinet squabbled. The American media, having sensed Afghanistan could be lost without action, chose to cover for their favorite president and begin the process of mentally preparing the public for defeat.

The Washington Post published a perfect example of the new meme in Howard Kurtz's column on October 23. Kurtz attacked Republicans as "armchair quarterbacks" for their criticism of Obama's stalling and said it was "rich" of Dick Cheney to demand a new plan. As for what that plan might be, Kurtz's Vietnam defeat song sounded all too familiar:

Is Chris Matthews feeling pressure to keep up with the Olbermanns when it comes to flinging invective at conservatives?  On this evening's Hardball, discussing Dick Cheney's statement—-made at a dinner at which he received an award—that Pres. Obama is dithering on Afghanistan, an apparently incensed Matthews spluttered [unexpurgated in the original]:

"What G--D--- award . . . are they giving these guys?"

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd must have woken up on the far-left side of the bed Tuesday given the number of prominent conservatives she chose to abuse in her article published Wednesday.

In "Daisy Chain of Cheneys", Dowd went after former Vice President Dick Cheney, his two daughters Liz and Mary, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, former Vice President Dan Quayle, Rush Limbaugh, the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol, and OF COURSE George W. Bush.

This was really quite a venom-dripping hatefest even for Dowd (h/t Jennifer Rubin):

Famed news photographer David Hume Kennerly took to the New York Times' “Lens” blog last week, with an update on Monday in which he denounced Newsweek's “skewed imagery to advance its editorial agenda,” to excoriate the magazine for “photo fakery” in how it cropped a picture he took of former Vice President Dick Cheney to imply “something sinister, macabre, or even evil was going on.” Kennerly proposed: “The Sept. 14th Newsweek cover line -- 'Is Your Baby Racist?' -- should have included a sub-head, 'Is Dick Cheney a Butcher?'”

Newsweek used the cropped photo from Getty Images for its “The Take” section with this caption: “'I am.' Dick Cheney on Fox News Sunday, in response to the question, 'So even these cases where [CIA interrogators] went beyond the specific legal authorization, you're OK with it?'” Kennerly explained:

Featured inside the magazine was a full-page, stand-alone picture of former Vice President Dick Cheney, knife in hand, leaning over a bloody carving board. Newsweek used it to illustrate a quote that he made about C.I.A. interrogators. By linking that photo with Mr. Cheney’s comment and giving it such prominence, they implied something sinister, macabre, or even evil was going on there. [Original, un-cropped, photo below the jump]

Talk about grasping at straws.

Once again, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow can't let a week pass without denigrating former vice president Dick Cheney, the better to shift attention from Obama's beleagured presidency.

Here's Maddow on her cable show Sept. 8, relaying news of British intelligence officials apparently still chagrined at Cheney for forcing their hand to arrest suspects in the '06 airline bombing plot before they were prepared to do so --

Ill will against former Vice President Dick Cheney still runs high in some circles.

So high, in fact, that when the University of Wyoming decided to name an international student center after him, Suzanne Pelican began circulating a petition against it last year. One year later, that petition has earned 150 signatures and an Associated Press story.

In a story titled “Protest brews over Cheney center at Univ. of Wyo.” AP reporter Mead Gruver writes:

The university's decision to name the center after Cheney, a former Wyoming congressman, prompted a petition that collected more than 150 signatures.

The petition said polices of the Bush administration were "very controversial" and the name will affect how people perceive the center.

If only Rachel Maddow watched her MSNBC show when someone else is guest hosting, she might avoid inconvenient juxtapositions.

The first part of the embedded clip shows Maddow on Aug. 31 taking aim at former vice president Dick Cheney's unapologetic defense of Bush administration tactics against al Qaeda and the war in Iraq.

The second part shows Newsweek investigative reporter Michael Isikoff appearing on Maddow's show Aug. 24 and inadvertently undermining what Maddow would say about Cheney a week later.

Late Wednesday afternoon, MSNBC's David Shuster and Chris Matthews made clear their agreement with the message of a new ad from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) which ridicules former Vice President Dick Cheney's past judgments and thus proclaims him  “WRONG” on the value of enhanced interrogation techniques, with Shuster declaring “he deserves” the “brutal ad” which makes, Matthews decided, an “obvious” and “undeniable” point.

Giving free publicity to the TV ad supposedly scheduled to begin airing Thursday on cable channels, just before 5 PM EDT MSNBC played part of the ad and Hardball viewers were treated to the entire 30 seconds about a half hour later. With “WRONG” on screen, the ad features a clip of Cheney asserting what was conventional wisdom at the time: “There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.” Then, with “HE'S STILL WRONG” on screen, viewers hear Cheney maintain “the enhanced interrogation techniques were absolutely essential.” The ad ends with:

DICK CHENEY
WRONG THEN
WRONG NOW

"No one can possibly believe that America is now safer because of the new restrictions on enhanced interrogation and the subsequent appointment of a special prosecutor."

So wrote the Washington Post's Richard Cohen in an op-ed Tuesday that is SURE to raise some liberal eyebrows.

In fact, the following snippets will likely raise some conservative ones as well (h/t Steve Malzberg):

ABC's Brian Ross and NBC's Andrea Mitchell on Tuesday night each listed some al Qaeda plots uncovered via CIA interrogations, but both balked when it came to vindicating former Vice President Dick Cheney on whether “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EITs) led to information which prevented attacks.

“Nowhere in the reports...does the CIA ever draw a direct connection between the valuable information and the specific use of harsh tactics,” Ross declared on World News in citing reports Cheney requested be released. NBC's Andrea Mitchell cited only Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and related how “administration officials say there is no way to know whether the same information could have be obtained from him without waterboarding or whether he would have given it up sooner had he been handled differently.”

On FNC, however, The Weekly Standard's Steve Hayes, quoting from the just-released 2004 report by CIA Inspector General John Helgerson, pointed out how even it noted regarding Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, the terrorist behind the USS Cole attack, “following the use of EIT's, he provided information about his most current operational planning as opposed to the historical information he provided before the use of the EIT's.” Hayes asserted: “I mean, it doesn't get clearer than that. So we can debate the morality, we can debate whether this was torture. We can't debate any longer about whether this was effective.”

Time magazine's online staff certainly undermined any notion of impartiality in how they littered the posted version of this week's cover story, “Inside Bush and Cheney's Final Days,” with the links they chose to display between paragraphs and at page breaks of the article. Some were innocuous, such as “See TIME's George W. Bush covers,” “See TIME's politics covers” and “See pictures of presidential First Dogs.”

Others, however, reflected hostility and/or derision toward the two key players in the story, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, starting with “Visit RottenTomatoes.com for reviews of W., Oliver Stone's 2008 portrait of George W. Bush” and “Read 'Leahy's Plan to Probe Bush-Era Wrongdoings.'”

Plus, “See the top 10 George W. Bush YouTube moments.” The #1 video on the linked page: “Shoes Thrown at George W. Bush in Iraq.” Amongst the 15 highlighted in “See America's worst Vice Presidents,” no surprise: “Richard B. Cheney.” The “See the top 10 unfortunate political one-liners” link goes to a collection which includes George H.W. Bush's pledge to not raise taxes: “Read my lips: no new taxes.”

President Obama and other liberals have frequently criticized the previous administration for a lack of transparency. But now it seems the Obama White House is practicing the same things liberals criticized President Bush and Vice President Cheney for.  

So on the July 22 edition of “Fox and Friends,” anchor Brian Kilmeade brought to viewer’s attention the Obama administration’s hypocrisy on their usage of the “Presidential Communication Privilege.”

Kilmeade recalled the “outrage” that erupted during the two terms of President Bush when energy executives met in secret with Vice President Dick Cheney and the public questioned their influence on the President’s energy plan. The administration claimed “Presidential Communication Privilege,” and never released the names. Subsequently, “Bush was vilified because of that.”

Hypocritically, President Obama has done the exact same thing with his health care plan. Fourteen different executives involved with the drug, medical, and hospital industries, have gone to the White House to advise the President on the health care reform bill.

Is there any doubt The Washington Post is a liberal paper? Three weeks back, the Post announced a contest asking readers to write an amusing first paragraph of Dick Cheney’s memoirs, since he was signed by the conservative imprint of Simon & Schuster. (This game wasn't played with Bill or Hillary Clinton.) On Sunday, the Post published 28 phony introductions: "we challenged readers to propose a first paragraph for the former veep's book. Culling the several hundred entries was, needless to say, a torturous process. Today we present some of our favorite renditions."

The Post splayed the entries across two entire pages in the Style & Arts section, but they are not online. A few were humorous (one was mostly redacted), but many were nasty, like one that began: "The day that the planes hit the tower, I could not help but be carried back to the first time my mother helped me eat the heart of a bear." Some were brief:

Unaccustomed as I am to the truth... -- R. Deierlein, White Plains, N.Y.

Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa! As for the rest? Mere history. Let the retelling begin. -- Pete Weitzel, Washington

Jan. 20, 2001: Things to do. 1) Convince W that he can really, really be a Jedi knight, if he is loyal & always listens to the Jedi master. -- Joe Bartl, Toronto and Kandahar

Well, I appear to have gotten away with most of it. -- Steve Chandler

Gene Weingarten has established himself as a Dick Cheney-hater, since he has compared him to Cambodian communist mass murderer Pol Pot. The "investigative humorist" and former editor of the Post’s Style section is at it again Sunday, with a splenetic and allegedly humorous venting against Cheney an an unholy, murderous savage.

The setup is Cheney’s forthcoming memoirs. He called up the publisher, Simon and Schuster’s Threshhold Editions, and they asked if he was "pro-book," meaning pro-Cheney. When he wouldn’t answer, the publisher would only answer to questions submitted in writing. This gave him an excuse to joke that he wouldn’t be biased or unprofessional, and then laid out all his Cheney hatred. Here’s a piece of it:

3. May I presume that Mr. Cheney will be remunerated in his customary way: a gunnysack filled with unblemished human heads?

Among those most overwrought about alleged illegality by the Bush White House in not informing Congress of a covert CIA effort to kill al Qaeda operatives is liberal radio host and MSNBC pundit Ed Schultz.

The implications of such rank criminality are profound, Schultz told his radio listeners on Tuesday (click here for audio) --

SCHULTZ: I was absolutely astounded today listening to Liz Cheney on MSNBC. Let me, this is one of my favorites right here. She makes the declaration that there were no laws broken. Here we go --