The Angry Right remains oddly quiet about desecration of flags, crosses at protest site

While conservative pundits wasted little time displaying their scorn for the grieving mother of a slain serviceman, they haven't had much to say about the desecration of flags and crosses at the site of Sheehan's protest. As Reuters reported,:

A pickup truck ran over wooden crosses erected at antiwar protester Cindy Sheehan's campsite on Monday night in the latest sign of tension over the peace vigil outside vacationing President Bush's Texas ranch.

Larry Northern, 46, of nearby Waco, Texas, was arrested and charged with criminal mischief in connection with the incident, Crawford Police Chief Donnie Tidmore said.

[...]

The small, white wooden crosses erected at the site are hand-painted with the names of soldiers killed in Iraq.

Northern's desecration of the crosses and flags hasn't drawn the scorn you would expect from right-wing pundits who are usually quick to loudly denounce anyone opposed to making it illegal to burn a flag as "anti-American." Apparently, to conservative commentators, it's un-American to defend someone's right to desecrate a flag, but OK to actually do it - as long as you're doing it to intimidate peaceful anti-war protestors led by the mother of a man who died for his country.

Speaking of intimidating protestors, just try to imagine the media and pundit outrage if a liberal had done something like this:

President Bush might have made his peace with the antiwar encampment outside his Texas ranch, but his next-door neighbor has taken up arms.

The incident occurred Sunday morning as activists gathered for a prayer service in the tent village set up by Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq and who is demanding a meeting with Bush to discuss the war.

On the other side of Prairie Chapel Road, Larry Mattlage hopped into his pickup, barreled across his pasture and pulled up to a fence within a few hundred feet of the protesters. He climbed out of the cab, retrieved a shotgun from the back and fired at least one blast into the air.

Mattlage insisted he was shooting at birds. But he said the activists had worn out their welcome, and he wanted them to go away.

"I done made my case. It's over," he said as he shooed away a reporter from the gated entrance to his ranch.

Mattlage later said he was preparing for dove-hunting season, then -- in case that was too subtle -- told reporters who asked if he had some other motivation, "Figure it out for yourself."

More than a year and a half after an individual unaffiliated with MoveOn.org submitted an ad to the group that compared President Bush to Nazis, we're still hearing outrage from conservative pundits like Terry Holt, who said on CNN on July 18, "We're talking about the wacky left, we're talking about the group of people that ran ads against the president, accusing him of being a Nazi. If they were serious about this, they would maintain a modicum of decorum and of seriousness. But every passing day, it gets more ridiculous."

But a lunatic pulls up to a fence near some peaceful anti-war protestors and fires a gun into the air in an obvious attempt at intimidation the day before another lunatic ran a pickup truck over white crosses and flags commemorating casualties of war, and there isn't nearly as much outrage.

The next time Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman sneers at the "Angry Left," remember that it's the Right, not the Left, that is running around saying a war widow "doesn't respect her own son's life." The next time some pundit or journalist buys into Mehlman's spin and refers to the "angry left-wing base of the Democratic Party," keep in mind that it isn't the left destroying crosses, desecrating flags, and firing guns to intimidate peaceful protestors.