Al Gore and his green allies never had to spend a week distancing themselves from the violent acts of the Earth Liberation Front. If the major media had covered ELF’s firebombing of resort homes and SUVs as they’ve covered the last week’s fringe-nut spitting and brick tossing, the environmental movement’s credibility – not to mention its heated rhetoric about “holocausts” and a “war on carbon” – might be different.

Ever eager to be a transmission belt (in Jonah Goldberg’s delicious phrase) for Democratic attempts to lump health-care opposition with violence, the MSM has flooded the airwaves with claims of offensive rhetoric.

But when Republican Rep. Bill McCollum held a House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on eco-terrorism in 1998? Nothing.

When Republican Rep. Scott McInnis demanded that green groups disavow acts of ELF violence in Nov. 2001? Nada. Though Salon managed to interpret that as Republicans “terrorizing the environmental movement.”

When ELF torched SUVs at a California dealership in 2003? Not a word from the nets.

When ELF committed further acts of violence from Pennsylvania to Seattle through the last decade? Only a cursory mention on CNN or a page 10 short in the New York Times. Gore was never put on the spot. No green group was scolded to modify their incendiary rhetoric.

For today’s partisan media, stories are convenient bricks.