Ted Nugent in July: “There’s a lunatic fringe on the left that literally are trying to force us to comply to their outline of life. And I find it just reprehensible that they would recommend violence, not to mention murder and shooting people and assassinating people. This is bizarre.”

Ted Nugent in August, while displaying two machine guns at a concert: “I told (Obama) to suck on my machine gun … Hilary, you might want to ride one of these into the sunset.”

Apparently Nugent doesn’t object to recommending violence and shooting people as long as he’s the “lunatic fringe” doing it.

Unsurprisingly, neither do many of the conservatives who like to whine about how liberals are overflowing with “hate speech.” Sean Hannity, for example, condemned the Dixie Chicks when one of them said she was “ashamed” Bush came from Texas, but he actively defended Nugent on a recent show.
If I were really cynical, I’d think Hannity’s concept of “hate speech” doesn’t go any deeper than “someone criticized a conservative.” And come to think of it, I am really cynical.

I’m not questioning Nugent’s right to free speech, however loathsome (and given his first quote, how completely hypocritical) his speech may be. But given how some conservatives routinely dismiss any critics of Bush as “unhinged” “Bush hating” liberals, it doesn’t hurt to remember what a double-standard they have in these matters.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 12:19 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.