The story of Rep. Patrick McHenry (R - NC) has been getting some attention:
During a public appearance on Saturday, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) belittled a U.S. soldier in Iraq who was following orders and wouldn't let McHenry go to the gym without the proper credentials. McHenry referred to the guard as a "two-bit security guard."
This episode causes Steve Benen to ask "what if a Democrat had said this," and for John Cole to speculate as to the likely answer:
If McHenry was a Democrat there would be a full on red alert action report sent across the WingNetTM. Kerning charts would be pulled out for referencing. Cheeto’s and Mountain Dew stock would triple. McHenry’s countertops would be inspected, and the Confederate Yankee would spend a week linking all the times McHenry had been in the same state as Barack Obama, showing decisively that Obama hates the troops (Jake Tapper would note that he thought this was the case, because he has a really keen sense for traitors- ask anyone in his family). We would learn that someone in McHenry’s family tree did something vaguely subversive in the 1960’s (maybe smoked a joint while listening to Jimi Hendrix’s version of the Star Spangled Banner, rather than standing erect and proudly displaying a lapel pin).
Yes: however, let's not forget that a very similar episode did occur, only with a reporter, not a Representative. And yes, the right blogosphere behaved pretty much exactly as Cole imagines. Right down to the hysterical grabbing of screenshots so the PROOF!111! of the wickedness of their foes could be eternally preserved. Insty linked, Malkin, it was all over Townhall...
The joke is of course that the reporter had a lot more justification for his behavior than did the Representative. But you knew that. Just for giggles, here's the Memeorandum link to this story, let's see where it goes.
UPDATE: Our friend Tom Maguire comments, with his usual class:
McHenry's political opponent describes the person as a "sentry protecting U.S. personnel in Iraq"; the video certainly does not say the guard is American.
Look, Iraqi rent-a-cops get blown up and shot at, and if they do a slack job a bomber can walk right past them, so McHenry should not be belittling them. But I suspect that most folks will feel a bit (or a lot) less outrage if the "two-bit guard" was a local rent-a-cop.
Just one of the fuzzie-wuzzies, eh wot?
UPDATE: Our pal Doctor "Squirrel Tits" Weasel wishes us to know that he duly condemns Rep. McHenry. For whatever that's worth. I was just citing that incident to confirm John Cole's point, so I don't especially care -- the original incident with the reporter still only matters as an example of The Wingnuttosphere acting like crazed vindictive jackasses.
For me, the only significance of the McHenry affair is that it's further evidence of the essentially colonial nature of the entire Iraqi adventure, complete with the obliviousness, incompetence, arrogance, pettiness, and condescension such an enterprise inevitably entails. McHenry could have been an interesting minor character in Heart of Darkness. From this perspective, that his defense is "that rent-a-cop wasn't an American soldier! He was a foreigner!" only makes the story that much more bleakly humorous, in a sickening sort of way. That the usual morons are taking this line too only makes me laugh so much harder that right now I have a splitting headache and want a stiff drink.