If there’s one thing we can absolutely count on in our post-ethical partisan era, it’s that for every scandal, there is, in short order, a similar — sometimes astoundingly similar — scandal on the other side. Sometimes, the comparisons are just so on-the-nose that you have a hard time believing they’re real. Remember when Virginia’s Democratic lieutenant governor hired Brett Kavanaugh’s lawyers to defend him from allegations of sexual assault? Remember when his accuser hired Christine Blasey Ford’s attorneys? Remember when the leader of a #MeToo organization called Time’s Up resigned to . . . vigorously defend her son against allegations of sexual misconduct?
Well, here we are again, and this one is a doozy. It turns out that Google works for conservative organizations as well, and Daily Caller News Foundation reporter Peter Hasson found out that the president of Media Matters has his own checkered online past. Here’s Peter:
But Carusone has his own track record of inflammatory statements. Carusone’s now-defunct blog included degrading references to “trannies,” “jewry” and Bangladeshis.
For example, here’s a summary of a particularly insulting post called “Tranny Paradise”:
Carusone posted a lengthy diatribe in November 2005 about a Bangladeshi man who was robbed by “a gang of transvestites,” as Carusone described it. Carusone was offended that the gang was described as “attractive” in an article.
“Did you notice the word attractive? What the f**k is that doing in there? Is the write[r] a tranny lover too? Or, perhaps he’s trying to justify how these trannies tricked this Bangladeshi in the first place? Look man, we don’t need to know whether or not they were attractive. The f**king guy was Bangladeshi,” Carusone wrote. “And while we’re out, what the hell was he doing with $7,300 worth of stuff. The guy’s Banladeshi! [sic]”
Carusone also chided police for not advising the public to “stay away from tranny bars, stay away from places [sic] where Eddie Murphy and Robert Downey Jr. have/are visiting, don’t f**king kiss a transvestite, don’t bring a group of transvestites back to your room, etc…”
And that’s just one post. Read Peter’s entire report to get the full flavor of Carusone’s scintillating insights about “Japs” and Jews.
People are still spitting mad at me on Twitter for pointing out that much of the outrage directed at Tucker Carlson is fake. That doesn’t mean Tucker’s comments were in any way decent, responsible, or right. He said terrible things, and I haven’t seen a single person defend the substance of his remarks. But the bottom line is that for most of the online world, revelations of past offensive comments aren’t causes of true anguish but rather instruments of vengeance. They’re weapons to wield against people you already despise. How do we know? Because the double standards abound. There is immense grace for allies and no mercy for enemies.
It will be fascinating to see the response to Carusone’s remarks. I expect they’ll be largely ignored. After all, one way to hide your hypocrisy is to minimize the significance of damning reports and hope no one notices. To the extent they’re not ignored, we’ll see some interesting mental gymnastics. “He’s learned. He’s grown. Tucker hasn’t.”
A consistent free-speech stance has multiple virtues. For one, it preserves a culture of free expression that has helped build the world’s greatest republic and made it a beacon of liberty for people of every faith and creed. For another, you get to opt out of the ridiculous gotcha game that has nothing to do with real debate, is completely divorced from meaningful principles, and is all about vengeance and punishment. Men who live in glass houses pelt each other with stones. They shatter our political culture. Only hypocrisy endures.