This makes me giggle a little. The liberals at Media Matters are fussing about the liberal media’s impassioned stories on liberal protests of Karl Rove’s speech to the Conservative Party for failing to mention the criticism of the group Families of September 11. They thought the Rove speech was divisive, self-serving, and offensive.

This should not be a surprise. A little scrolling around the web site of FOS11 (as they shorten it) shows that they are active in promoting a program called “Hope Not Hate,” which — in a perfect echo of the Rove speech — aims to talk our way out of the war on terror. The organizing materials express the urgent need to “reduce mutual hatred” and tout the Boston Globe’s endorsement of the series as a “victory of knowledge and inquiry over fear and blind pledges of revenge.” This is not, as the gurus at Media Matters imagine, an effective way to repudiate Rove. It is an effective way to underline Rove’s point about liberalism’s drive for therapy and understanding.