Department of Double Standards, part 10^21

It’s been a while since I updated the department of double standards…but I couldn’t resist after Frank Rich wrote this laugher of a column:

If Reid can serve as the face of Democratic fecklessness in the Senate, then John McCain epitomizes the unpatriotic opposition. On Wednesday night he could be seen sneering when Obama pointed out that most of the debt vilified by Republicans happened on the watch of a Republican president and Congress that never paid for “two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program.”

As Byron York points out, Frank Rich has long decried what he sees as efforts by Republicans to brand their opponents as unpatriotic or treasonous, even if they, y’know, never called their opponents unpatriotic or treasonous. Consider this gem from the ’08 election:

His other tactic is to try to create a smoke screen by smearing Barack Obama as unpatriotic. Mr. McCain has suggested that the Democratic front-runner is the Hamas candidate and has piled on to Mr. Bush’s effort to slur Mr. Obama as an apostle of “appeasement.” A campaign ad presented Mr. McCain as “the American president Americans have been waiting for” (not to be confused, presumably, with the un-American president Al Qaeda has been waiting for).

Of course, McCain never called Obama unpatriotic; he just brought up the fact that the radical Islamic group Hamas had said that they were in favor of Obama winning the election. There’s a pretty big difference between the two.

So just to recap: Calling a senator unpatriotic for no reason whatsoever is fine; pointing out that a foreign enemy supports the election of your opponent is tantamount to calling said opponent unpatriotic and thus the worst, mostest un-American thing ever. Thanks, Frank.