I'm screaming at the top of my lungs....

A couple of other Bloggers (actually prominent bloggers) have been rightfully outraged over the media attention to the kerfluffle (for lack of a better term) over Edwards hiring two bloggers who, in the past, had used foul language in their blog posts, and, one of which, was critical of the Catholic Church and their respective policies on birth control, abortion and condoms.

Keith Olbermann took on a piece of it earlier this week by naming William Donahue as at least the Worser person in the world in his nightly Worse, Worser, Worst Person in the World Segment by noting that Donahue had used similar ...er....intemperate ... (yeah, right) language in describing "Hollywood" in the very recent past.

Digby and Attaturk had riffed on the "double standard" of excoriating Liberal Blogger and columnists while giving Conservative Bloggers and Columnists a pass. I'm going to add to this....

Glenn Greenwald at Unclaimed Territory (which has moved up to Salon) gets into the most egregious example to date. He cites Frank Gaffney's column in today's Washington Times (owned by the Moonies no less)

Frank Gaffney, one of the country's most influential and well-connected neoconservatives, has a column in today's Washington Times in which he argues that the debate taking place in Congress over the war in Iraq constitutes treason. Gaffney specifically argues that the condemnations of Douglas Feith from Sen. Rockefeller "really should be a hanging offense."

Gaffney begins his column by purporting to quote Abraham Lincoln. Gaffney claims that Lincoln said:
Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged.

But this quote is completely invented. Lincoln never said it. This "quote" was first attributed to Lincoln by J. Michael Waller in Insight Magazine, in a 2003 article revealingly entitled: Democrats Usher in an Age of Treason. But as Waller himself now admits, the quote attributed to Lincoln is completely fraudulent. Waller wrote in an e-mail to FactCheck.org (h/t William Wolfrum):

The supposed quote in question is not a quote at all, and I never intended it to be construed as one. It was my lead sentence in the article that a copy editor mistakenly turned into a quote by incorrectly inserting quotation marks.

Of course, that doesn't stop Gaffney from building an entire column around the quote and using it to suggest that Congressmen who dare debate this issue on the floor of the House of Representatives are guilty of TREASON.

Here's what steams me:

Aside from Glenn's excellent article, nobody else is talking about this, especially in that lofty realm we sometimes refer to as The MainStream Media (MSM).

We don't see Chris Matthews talking about it. We don't see him breathlessly (I think he does everything "breathlessly") pounding on Gaffney saying, "Is DISSENT TREASON? Yes or No?....Yes or No?"

We certainly don't see the Bill O'Reilly (isn't he supposed to be the one "Watching out for you?) wagging his finger or putting Gaffney "on notice" for his anti-American article.

We don't see anybody taking them to task for inventing a quote for Lincoln...

Instead we're letting them get away with fomenting hatred and dissent and galvanizing intolerance for any opinion other than their own.

This is ridiculous...................