A question of equivalence

When did it become acceptable to defend something we shouldn’t have done by saying, “Well, they did it, too!”

OK, we all know it was kindergarten. Maybe the better question is: When is the “Equivalence Defense” not acceptable? “Always” seems like a good answer. I think a vast majority would at least agree to “over the age of six.”

And yet, the web is now full of people using the “Equivalence Defense” in an attempt to justify Rep. Joe Wilson’s (R-SC) outburst last week during President Obama’s speech to Congress on health care reform.

The argument goes something like this: Democrats insulted President Bush (43) all the time and they criticized his rationale, policies and even his (lack of) diction. All true.

Lincoln Mitchell says this kind of argument “makes it possible to avoid confronting just how troubling the recent behavior of the Republican Party has been.”

Mitchell is an associate professor of International Politics at Columbia. Here are some excerpts from his column now on Huffington Post. It’s headlined “The Silence of the Republicans“:

…the venom directed against President Bush, while strong and at times genuinely hateful, came from the far left and the most intense opponents to the war. It did not come from the leadership of the Democratic Party, nor did it have the approval, tacit or otherwise, of that leadership.

Similarly, the Democratic Party did not organize people to compare Bush to Hitler, to question the legitimacy of his presidency or to shout down representatives of the administration or Republican members of Congress at meetings throughout the country.

…while it can be argued, although probably wrongly, that the anti-Obama fervor is no worse than the anti-Bush feelings of a few years ago, it cannot be argued that the two parties have engaged in this rhetoric in the same way.

Mitchell goes on to question what he calls the silence of Republican leadership on a wide range of questionable behavior, from Rep. Wilson’s outburst to calling Obama “Hitler.”

I’m writing this blog post because I want to know if others are hearing this “Equivalence” argument and what you think about it. Comment below