No respect for the dead

Posted by Liliana Segura on AlterNet, the following quickly went viral on other nutroots leftist sites:

Late last night, to her credit, Sarah Palin posted the following statement on her Facebook page on the passing of Ted Kennedy:

"I would like to extend our sympathies to the Kennedy family as we hear word about the passing of Senator Ted Kennedy. He believed in our country and fought passionately for his convictions."

Several of her Facebook pals lauded her "classy" move.

Others? Not so much...

[...]

Stay classy, Palin fans!

Here are some examples:

"...dead of dvine retributionbrain cancer, at least 6 years to late." (sic)

"...i thought the world seemed a little brighter today"

"...Cancer got him, poor guy. I guess professional courtesy ain't what it used to be."

"...Good riddance..."

Sad to see Sarah Palin's Facebook followers being so nasty on the occasion of Ted Kennedy's passing. Oh, wait...

Those examples above were not from Facebook. They were from Twitter. And they were not from Sarah Palin fans; they were made by leftists. Finally, they were not made last week in reaction to Ted Kennedy's death, but actually the week before on the passing of a conservative journalist.

Our former colleague Caleb Howe collected the quotes for a RedState.com diary today:

"Robert Novak was a conservative and a journalist. He never sent anyone to war (in fact, he opposed the Iraq war), robbed a bank, or committed manslaughter at a lake; yet apparently the crime of being a conservative is justification enough for celebrating his death."

Caleb was just making a point:

"Yes, there was some nastiness from the right regarding Ted Kennedy on the day he died. Just as there was some even-handed and respectful commentary from the left, including from Markos Moulitsas himself, regarding Robert Novak on the day of his passing. But that’s just the point, isn’t it? The din of outraged objection from the left over negative Kennedy commentary rings all too hollow in the face of the arguably more sinister, arguably less justified nastiness from the left... when another man of the same age died of the same disease from our side of the aisle."

And it wasn't just done to Novak. We saw the same ugliness from liberals when Ronald Reagan died. In fact, whenever an icon of either the left or right passes away, there will be crass comments from the opposition. We see it every time. The difference is that there is always a greater volume of it from leftists, and it always represents a larger percentage of all the comments made on a given werbsite. And the Left is always filled with moral outrage when the other side does it.

Segura cherry picked a few nasty comments from Sarah Palin's Facebook page, where there are nearly 850,000 people following the former governor, and not all of them are Palin fans. Even though she gave Palin credit for the former governor's kind and thoughtful expression of sympathy, Segura's point was obviously to try to taint Sarah Palin with the negative remarks made by some of her Facebook followers, not all of whom, again,  are Palin supporters.

As Caleb reminds us, when a polarizing figure dies, criticism, even on the day of his or her passing, should be expected as surely as we expect night to follow day. Still, just because one side gets really ugly in its criticism it is no excuse for the other to follow suit. And:

"As for the increasingly morally indignant objectors on the left, do let’s try and remember two weeks ago. Hmm?"

- JP