Teamsters President James Hoffa isn’t backing down from his Labor Day stemwinder, and few on the left are calling on him to do so. Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer says there’s a lesson in that.
On Tuesday’s “Special Report” on the Fox News Channel, Krauthammer said the lack of a backlash was the latest evidence of hypocrisy from President Obama’s party.
“The real story is [the] cosmic hypocrisy of the Democrats,” Krauthammer said. “We had the shooting in Tucson all of a sudden that was obviously the act of a psychotic mad man … and yet for four days there was unrelenting vitriol from the left — some elected representatives, some commentators, columnists, about how this was caused by the, the, somehow, the climate.”
Krauthammer dismissed the theory that there was an abnormally hostile political climate after Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot.
“In fact, the front page of The New York Times asked the day after — not an editorial [but] a reporting story — spoke about the climate which had been created. It was nonsense from the beginning,” he continued. “I remind you the president, even though he spoke about civil discourse at the ceremony a week later, allowed these attacks on the right to go on for four days without saying a word. And it’s the president, as we saw in the clip, all of a sudden became the champion of civil discourse. Here’s the head of a union, an ally of his, speaking in these terms [of] ‘taking out’ the opposition.”
Krauthammer said that the Obama administration’s failure to dismiss Hoffa’s comments shows a double standard.
“And remember, this is the head of a union with his own history, a man called Hoffa with his own family history,” he said. “The president … spoke 20 minutes after, on the same stage and said nothing. I think the real story is double standards. Civil discourse is a one-way street if you’re a Democrat.”