(Via AoSHQ): In 1988, I was a Democrat.  I came from a long line of Democrats; we were a good union household, the old blue-collar generation pushing the new generation into white collar.  When it came to political heroes, it was FDR, Truman, JFK all the way: my parents voted for Carter, and grumbled about Reagan throughout his term.  1988 was my first election, and I went right down to the polling place and proudly voted for Dukakis/Bentsen.  In short, I was a Democratic voter in a Democratic family in a Democratic state in a Democratic region who voted for two Democrats.

And if my Democratic parents had ever caught me calling a Republican First Lady crude names, even by implication, I would have gotten whacked on the ear*.

Speaking Bluntly
Mark Hemingway

[snip]

Three pages in, after lamely trying to establish his bipartisan bona fides by talking up George H. W. Bush, Reid shares this charming anecdote about his early days in the Senate: “[Former Texas senator and vice-presidential candidate Lloyd] Bentsen went on and on effusively about what a quality man President-elect [H. W.] Bush was. Then he paused and said, ‘But watch out for his wife; she’s a b[*]tch.’ I have never had anything against Mrs. Bush, but guided by Bentsen’s crude advice, I’ve always said that our forty-third president is more his mother than his dad.”

Which I guess makes me different from Harry Reid.

Thank God.

Moe Lane

*In fact, my mom would probably still do it.  And I’d sit there and take it, too.  That’s because I was raised to respect women.

By now you’ve all heard that Ashley Biden is a cokehead . . . or at least was caught on video snorting coke. Just like Barack Obama.

In the process of writing about the Vice President’s daughter, the media just can’t help drag Barbara and Jenna Bush into this or Bristol Palin.

Let’s catch up:

Barbara and Jenna were underage drinkers. Their father allegedly snorted cocaine, but there has neither been a videotape nor an admission of such actions — that hasn’t kept the left/media from speculating.

The bottom line, though, is this: Ashley Biden is a private citizen. As are Barbara and Jenna Bush. As is Bristol Palin.

The fixation on this and those stories says more about the media than it does about the individuals, who I’m sure have problems of one sort or another shared by many, many Americans.

What is more troubling is how the media has sought to use the Ashley Biden story to transition back into Palin bashing and Bush bashing, none of whom are on the national stage anymore.

If the media wants to use the “everybody does it” story line they love, perhaps they should instead focus on Barack Obama, who admits to snorting coke.

But more preferably, perhaps the media should drop it altogether. Ashley Biden never asked to be in the national spotlight. Neither did Barbara nor Jenna Bush. Neither did Bristol Palin whose exposure on the national stage was probably more brutal than the treatment of any of the others I’ve mentioned and is still ongoing.

It is a tragedy, but not a national tragedy. The media would have us believe it is a national tragedy, but only to sell more ads, sell more papers, and trash George Bush and Sarah Palin some more — cowardly using their children as proxies.

But let me take this opportunity to remind you of one important thing the media prefers not to talk about: for all the accusations without evidence against George Bush, we know for certain Barack Obama snorted coke. Just like Joe Biden’s daughter.

Do we really want to turn this into a big story?