OPINION:
Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao reacted with swift and not-too-subtle anger when a handful of snarky, smug, self-righteous students swarmed her, her female companion and her husband, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, outside a Georgetown University event and demanded to know why the senator was “separating families” at the border.
You go, girl. Who knew Chao could be that tough on morons?
“Why don’t you leave my husband alone,” she said, sticking her finger in the face of these angry youths. “You leave my husband alone.”
But the real story here isn’t Chao’s bold defense of her husband, applause-worthy as it was.
The real story is that what’s good for the Democratic goose is never held as good for the Republican gander.
Remember when Hillary Clinton and all her supporters cried foul when her U.S. Senate foe, Rick Lazio, dared to cross the stage to confront her at her podium?
They gasped at the effrontery of the situation, the aggressiveness of the male candidate.
“He tried to get her to sign a campaign finance pledge,” The Associated Press reported in September 2016, recalling this widely watched 2000 event. “The move backfired. Lazio was viewed as sexist and a bully and he went on to lose to Clinton.”
Yep. That’s how it played.
“Mrs. Clinton Portrays Lazio as Bully and Derides His Tax Plan,” The New York Times reported, right after the debate.
Right.
But fast-forward a few years and nowadays we’ve got Democrats in Congress calling for summers of resistance, Democrats from California calling on anti-President Donald Trumpers to publicly confront and harass White House officials, leftists in the streets storming Republican Cabinet members and taking up spots outside their homes to protest — and now, college-age kids blocking the walking paths of Chao and her female assistant as they leave an event with McConnell.
Where are the rants against bullies from the left now? Where are the media headlines calling out these male aggressors as sexist?
Chao put up some fierce resistance to these thuggish guys who no doubt were swinging for their 15 minutes of fame.
But it’d be nice if the left could police itself better. After all, if Lazio’s simple crossing of the stage to Clinton’s podium was branded an act of bullying, then surely what this group of males did to Chao — surely what the Democrats are allowing to kick off against Trump administration officials, particularly against administration officials of female persuasion — can be called out as bullying as well.
As for those Democrats who stand silent on these acts of bullying? Well, they’re just setting themselves up as part of the problem — as the quiet champions and shameful supporters of aggression toward those with contrasting views.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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