Stand up to conservative bullies

I wondered if the newspaper layout was some kind of a joke. The irony was just too much. Located on the same page this week were an article on the exposé of the grassroots organizing group ACORN and its accompanying conservative outrage, an article about Representative Joe Wilson’s Tourette’s moment last week, and an article about drunken military contractors having frat boy evenings in Afghanistan.

What do these three stories have in common? The connection is the hypocrisy and bullying behavior of the Republican Party.

Let’s start with ACORN, an organization historically linked to the Democratic Party and President Obama in particular. Yes, some of the group’s employees gave extremely bad advice to “investigators” masquerading as a prostitute and a pimp, but ACORN responded quickly by firing those involved and initiating an independent review. Democrats quickly capitulated to Republican outrage over the incidents and their response has been severe.

The Senate voted Monday to block the Housing and Urban Development Department from giving grants to ACORN, and the Census Bureau last week severed its ties with the group for the 2010 national head count.

Score one for conservatives who have had it in for ACORN for a long time.

What happens when organizations linked to Republicans conduct immoral behavior? They get their contracts renewed. Private security guards in Kabul who threw raunchy, boozy parties and posed “a significant threat to security" are being investigated, but there is no talk of the federal government severing ties with their employer:

The guards work for ArmorGroup North America, which has an $180 million annual contract with the State Department to secure the embassy and the 1,000 diplomats, staff and Afghan nationals who work there. The State Department renewed the contract in July despite finding numerous performance deficiencies by ArmorGroup in recent years which were the subject of a Senate subcommittee hearing in June.

It was Donald Rumsfeld who made private contractors, particularly those connected with Dick Cheney’s old company, Halliburton, an integral part of our armed forces.

Indeed, Rumsfeld's trademark "small footprint" approach ushered in one of the most significant developments in modern warfare--the widespread use of private contractors in every aspect of war, including in combat.

These hired mercenaries from the likes of KBR and Blackwater have killed Iraqi civilians, stolen Iraqi treasures and sexually assaulted their co-workers, all while continuing to earn billions of tax-payer dollars.

Where’s the conservative outrage? All I see is hypocrisy.

And so we get to Representative Wilson who broke congressional rules last week by yelling, “You lie,” during President Obama’s congressional address. Wilson was grudgingly contrite about the incident, and Republicans stood behind him. House Dems actually showed some backbone in censuring him, but only because they were led to do so by senior black lawmakers.

In this instance Republicans stood their ground and defended the bullying behavior of one of their own. What do Democrats usually do when the bullies attack?

When Van Jones was recently ambushed by the conservative media for signing a suspicious petition, the Obama administration caved to Republican pressure by not defending Jones, and allowing him to resign from his government position. Score another one for the bullies.

Repeatedly, conservatives let their media attack dogs maul Democrats, and repeatedly progressive organizations and Democrats roll over and take it. Belly up. What did our parents teach us to do with bullies? They taught us to stand up to them. If you don't, bullies will continue to pick on someone who they think is weaker than they are.

Democrats need to defend their own, not back down and stand up to the bullying hypocrites. If they see we are weak, conservatives will keep hitting us until we fall. And now's not the time to fall.