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Free speech needs no double standard

With America at war to free oppressed people at the mercy of a cruel dictator, Congress rejected the future deployment of ground troops, then, in another partisan swipe at the president, refused to endorse airstrikes already underway.

The man, who pushed the resolutions, made statements sympathizing with the enemy, saying America’s military might lead the dictator to commit cruel atrocities. “We must stop giving the impression that our foreign policy is formulated by the Unabomber,” he said in one of several harsh statements criticizing the president.

It wasn’t some unpatriotic, liberal Democrat who said that. It was then-Republican whip Tom DeLay in 1999 as he led GOP opposition to U.S. military action to stop genocide in Kosovo.

DeLay, now the House majority leader, even labeled the conflict “Mr. Clinton’s war.”

But even though DeLay had no problem with second guessing a democratic president in a time of war, he thinks it is dangerous for anyone to dare question a republican president.

When Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said, “we need a regime change in the United States,” DeLay and the GOP went on the offensive.

“Demanding regime change in America isn’t unpatriotic. It’s vile,” DeLay’s spokesman, Jonathan Grella, told the Los Angeles Times.

No, what’s vile is hypocritical politicians who apply a double standard to free speech.