When I read this post a American Glob about lefty groups coordinating with each other to investigate Obama critics, I was prepared to be pissed off.  The post’s title said the groups were “digging for dirt” on Obama’s critics, and the quotes from the referenced Politico piece seemed to imply a rather nefarious scheme to expose and attack critics personally, rather than on a policy basis.  Wrote American Glob:

To their credit, Progressive Obama supporters did say they were going to change the tone of Washington. They just left out the part about making it sleazier…

Wit all due respect to A.G. (I looked around the site and like it overall), I cannot agree, at least not entirely.

The group’s propagandist bona fides are established by the artificial controversy they created over Rush Limbaugh’s “I hope [Obama] fails” comment (a sentiment I have said we should embrace, not shun) and their installation of him as the de facto RNC chair.  Which makes it a little hard to take them at  their word, to say the least.  

But the other examples given in the Politico piece strike me as perfectly legitimate, rather than the divorces, “love children,” affairs and family secrets I was expecting based on A.G.’s post.

When a new group called Conservative for Patients Rights, for instance, launched an ad campaign featuring former health care executive Rick Scott, “There was a discussion about what do we know about this guy and in a very quick period of time we were able to come up with his background,” she said. 

Scott, as progressive groups quickly informed reporters, had reportedly been forced to resign as head of the company became known as Columbia/HCA amid fraud charges, and the company eventually paid a massive settlement in the case.

When Betsy McCaughey, best known for her attacks on Clinton’s 1993 health care plan, published a column criticizing Obama, groups on the call coordinated attacks on her recalling questions about her 1993 article and noting her seat on the board of a medical device maker, in which she also owned stock.

Now, whether these basics retain legitimacy depends in large part on presentation.  It’s perfectly OK to point out perceived or real conflicts of interests and biases.  But I suspect these groups are going to go overboard, and attach all sorts of evil motives to all kinds of critiques.

But the double standard generally employed by lefties and the MSM is what irks me, and it’s also what irks Allahpundit, who says it better than I can, about this situation:

We’re only six weeks into Obama’s term, though, and already I’ve lost count of the number of “What if Bush or McCain did it?” moments we’ve had, starting with The One’s newfound fondness for rendition, his bizarre rudeness to Gordon Brown, his blase attitude towards the Dow’s death spiral, his sudden tolerance for earmarks by the thousands, and on and on. Consider this the capper, as the thought of dozens of cogs in the “right-wing noise machine” turning daily in unison on a White House axle would warrant a Very Special Episode indeed of “Countdown,” replete with sneering references to “Minitruth” just to remind you that Cornell men have read their Orwell. 

Amen.