What’s Good for the Goose is… Well, Not if You’re a Conservative.

I don’t know Howard Rich. I wouldn’t know him if he kicked me in the junk, and frankly I don’t care if he ever comes here. Our Yankee quota is filled with Ohio license plates on the coast.

What bothers me is the constant, “It’s OK if we (liberals) do it, but we can’t let conservatives do it,” mentality.

The hypocrisy makes me nauseous.

There’s a guy named George Soros. He’s a big time liberal donor. He was born in Hungary, moved to England, and he’s now a New Yorker. He funds candidates and organizations that promote liberal agendas. His own bio even says,

“In 2003, Soros said that removing President George W. Bush from office was one of his main priorities. During the 2004 campaign, he donated significant funds to various groups dedicated to defeating the president.”

He’s been involved for years with no criticism until now. No newspapers. No TV. No radio. Not many bloggers. He’s escaped unscathed.

There are two other people. We’ll call them Marion and Herb Sandler because those are their real names. They’re major donors to groups including MoveOn.org, Air America Radio, and ACORN. They also owned a large share of and managed business affairs for Golden West Savings and Loan which did a huge business by pulling in billions of dollars in sub-prime mortgages before selling the bank to Wachovia in 2006 for $24 billion. The Sandlers’ portion of that came out to roughly $2.4 billion, and the sub-prime mortgages then became assets/liabilities of Wachovia which could be argued as a big reason for the bank’s current situation.

They’ve been involved for years with no criticism until now. No newspapers. No TV. No radio. Not many bloggers. They’ve escaped unscathed.

I keep saying “until now” because on October 4, NBC’s Saturday Night Live broadcast a sketch staged like a C-SPAN press conference.

It blasted Republicans and Democrats from George Bush to Nancy Pelosi to Barney Frank, but the show’s writers added a few other characters including Mr. Soros and Mr. and Mrs. Sandler.

Soros was tagged as “Multi-billionaire Hedge Fund Manager” and “Owner, Democratic Party.” The Sandlers’ description beneath their name was “People who should be shot.”

It was funny. At least it was to everyone but Soros and the Sandlers.

After a couple of calls to SNL’s executive producer Lorne Michaels, NBC pulled the video of the sketch from all of its web sites and replaced it with an edited version (but you can still see the original here until somebody’s legal team scares someone else in to pulling it down).

Michaels told the Los Angeles Times that he “in a state of complete ignorance, thought they were characters in the piece” and added, “I did not know they were real, up until somebody called me about it on Monday.”

NBC had a different explanation. “Upon review, we caught certain elements in the sketch that didn’t meet our standards,” according to the network’s statement.

After that slight criticism and following a few phone calls, the Sandlers and Soros escaped unscathed again.

Now, former DNC chair Don Fowler is criticizing the conservatives’ version of Soros, Howard Rich.

If you live in South Carolina, you know who he is by now. You can’t escape this guy’s name if you want to.

After being a scapegoat for media and certain bloggers across the state, Rich is now being whined about to Dan Hoover of The Greenville News because of letters sent by Rich on letterhead of his group Americans for Limited Government to liberal donors across the country.

According to Hoover’s piece, 16 were mailed to South Carolina.

Hoover wrote, “Fowler, a Columbia communications executive and major ally of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, said Rich’s letter and accompanying legal memorandum on federal election laws were ’some kind of attempt to intimidate people.’”

How can anybody give Fowler credibility anymore? He’s the same guy who joked with Congressman John Spratt on the way from the Democratic National Convention, “That just demonstrates God’s on our side,” as a hurricane was projected to hit New Orleans at the same time the Republican convention was scheduled to begin in St. Paul (video below).

Of course no where in the article does Hoover point out that liberal organizations like Accountable America sent their own letters to conservative activists and that Rich’s letter is just taking a page from the other team’s playbook.

What’s my point?

My point is that I’m sick and tired of hypocrisy coming from these liberal clowns who have no problem with two sets of rules — one for them and one for anybody who isn’t them.

These are the same people who campaigned in the 60s for free speech to protest the government, but only conservative leaders are fair game today. They want freedom of the press, but they get jumpy when conservatives begin blogging and getting out information faster than they can on the mainstream side.

I don’t care if it’s coming from the media, a finance guy who is perceived as buying the Democratic Party years ago, an older couple with alleged business practices make them caricatures for making a fortune off sub-prime mortgages and bringing down one of the country’s biggest banks, or a used-to-be-but-wishes-he-still-was party head who makes jokes about human death and property destruction caused by a hurricane in one of America’s recovering cities.

So, to all of you who bash Rich and his people, either put up or shut up. It’s fine if you keep examining Rich, but at least act like you aren’t completely biased and start examining your own people who use identical tactics.

If you can’t do that and admit to yourself how dishonest you’re being with the people who read, watch, or listen to the one-sided garbage you’re putting out, stuff your hypocrisy in your collective hat.

Something tells me The State still won’t take my advice, though.

– Bo Burdette