But what troubles me about Harwood’s comments is that they are, I’m willing to bet, not the expression of some broad belief in freedom of speech, but rather are a pragmatic rhetorical attempt to rescue Biden from the very kinds of criticisms Harwood would be loath to defend were the target someone like Trent Lott.

– All of which points back to the animating tenet in “liberal” ideology — namely, that, simply by virtue of adopting the left-liberal agenda, one is good, and so his “mistakes” are but minor slip-ups, hiccups in a life of sublime goodliness. Whereas any kind of minor slip-up by those on the “right” (classical liberals included, these days) are to be seen as brief inadvertent flashes revealing their grubby souls — even when those flashes are either admittedly unintended, or else have to be run through a special code book to prove visible to the watchdogs of all that is good and righteous.