July 25, 2005 [LINK]
Hugh Hewitt (via Instapundit) savages Rep. Tom Tancredo's (R-CO) suggestion that we ought to consider retaliating against Muslim holy sites if Islamic terrorists wreck an American city with nuclear weapons. Tancredo was way off base (see my July 22 post), but there's no point in belaboring the obvious. Hewitt does, however, aptly call attention to a weak spot on the contemporary Right that is at the root of Tancredo's rhetorical excess, which rivals the recent gaffe by Dick Durbin:
In fact Tancredo is preoccupied with attention-getting statements that play to the frustrated edge of the conservative camp that sees any denunciation of "political correctness" as an endorsement of their desire for blunt talk against media elites.
In other words, it seems that many conservatives are letting righteous indignation over the hyperinflammatory rhetoric and deranged attitudes exhibited by many folks on the Left in recent years cloud their judgment as to the limits of prudent discourse. Perhaps the Left has merely been throwing "sucker punches" at the Right, baiting them into a no-win war of words but not really meaning all those absurd rants they've been spouting.