Selective Outrage: Treason Edition

I see the left is running around, palms up, screaming about the town hall attendee who made the statement that President Obama should be tried for treason. From ABC:

A  supporter stood and declared that President Barack Obama should be “tried for treason.”

The comment came during a town hall meeting in Cleveland. Taking the microphone, a woman told Romney that Obama had been “operating outside the structure of our Constitution.” Pausing after her question, she remarked to another member of the audience, “I agree, he should be tried for treason.”

Turning back to Romney, she asked what he would do to “restore balance” between the three branches of government and “restore our Constitution.” She did not specify why she believed Obama should be “tried for treason”—a comment that received a huge applause from the audience. And when it was his turn to respond, Romney ignored her suggestion about “treason” and instead spoke about how he would “respect the different branches of government.”

They’re upset that he chose to ignore her ridiculous suggestion that President Obama be tried with treason and just answer the question that was actually posed to him.

Now, after the town hall he was asked the treason question directly. His response:

“No, of course not.”

But that wasn’t good enough for Team Obama. Ben LaBolt, Press Secretary for Obama for America asked when will Mitt Romney “stand up to the extreme voices in his party” and Obama campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith said this in an email to Raw Story:

Today we saw Mitt Romney’s version of leadership: standing by silently as his chief surrogate attacked the President’s family at the event and another supporter alleged that the President should be tried for treason,” Smith wrote. “Time after time in this campaign, Mitt Romney has had the opportunity to show that he has the fortitude to stand up to hateful and over-the-line rhetoric and time after time, he has failed to do so. If this is the ‘leadership’ he has shown on the campaign trail, what can the American people expect of him as commander-in-chief?

Fair enough. Let’s look at some other instances of people being accused of treason and/or betraying our country.

“This is quasi-treasonous from my point of view. How can you let American industry be wiped out?” - Van Jones, Former White House Green Czar on GOP opposing loans to Solyndra.

“He betrayed this country!” – Former Vice President Al Gore on George Bush

“Failing to warn the citizens of a looming weapon of mass destruction — and that’s what global warming is — in order to protect oil company profits, well that fits for me the definition of treason.” – Bill Maher on George Bush

“Ezra, you wrote on the blog that the worse this gets, that the less likely Congress will act to stop the bleeding, why don’t people look at that like it is an act of treason?” – MSNBC host Thomas Roberts to Ezra Klein (Ezra didn’t bite).

“President Bush probably also leaked Valerie Plame’s name and so if he did, you can be hung for that! That’s treason!” – Ben Affleck

“George H.W. Bush, the president’s father, was the head of the CIA, and he has said that outing a CIA agent is treason. … And so, basically, what it looks like is going to happen is that Libby and Karl Rove are going to be executed.” – Sen. Al Franken, appearing on Letterman.

And my friend @ExJon pointed out that if your search Daily Kos with the words “Bush” and “Treason” you will find 3,574 results.

As you can see people making crazy comments about people committing treason and betrayal are rather common on the left, but I guess those don’t matter. It doesn’t matter that they’re made by political c0mmentators, a future U.S. Senator, a cable news host on a network that’s in the tank for Democrats, a lefty blog, or a former Vice President. Where was the outcry then?

Crazy accusations like that only matter when the the left can use them to paint a Republican as complicit in them, even when the person making that statement is a complete nobody and never even asked that question. When reporters did ask Mitt, he clearly said no.