IOKIYAR

Imagine there were a foreign politician who said:

• "We are all happy when U.S. soldiers are killed [in Iraq] week in and week out. The killing of U.S. soldiers in Iraq is legitimate and obligatory."

• In October 2003, after rockets were fired at the hotel at which Paul Wolfowitz was staying in Baghdad, that "We hope that next time the rockets will be more accurate and effective in getting rid of this virus and his like, who wreak corruption in Arab lands."

• That he felt "great joy" at the 2002 space shuttle Columbia disaster because one of the astronauts was Israeli.

• That the real axis of evil is "oil and Jews," and "The oil axis is present in most of the U.S. administration, beginning with its president, vice president, and top advisers, including Rice, who is oil-colored, while the axis of Jews is present with Paul Wolfowitz."

Next, imagine a Democratic president and vice president met with him on multiple occasions and spoke of their admiration for his "courageous stand." And that prominent liberal think tanks invited him to give high-profile speeches.

And then: imagine the weeks of wall-to-wall shrieking on every cable show in America. Imagine how it could be heard on Mars. Imagine the endless, furious denunciations by every Republican politician with a mouth. Imagine the mass resignations, public disavowals and groveling apologies. Imagine how the incident would be woven forevermore into a narrative about the need for Democrats to assure America every day until the end of time they had left behind their America-hating, anti-Semitic, terrorist-loving ways.

None of this happened, of course. Because while Lebanese politician Walid Jumblatt has said all these things, he's only met with a Republican president, George W. Bush (last February). And he's only met, on multiple occasions, with a Republican Vice President, Dick Cheney. (Cheney followed Jumblatt onstage just last week, which is when he took the opportunity to praise Jumblatt's "courageous stand.") And Jumblatt has only been feted by prominent conservative think tanks, such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

It's a measure of the absolute conservative dominance of the media and entire political system that not only is this all OK, almost no one is even aware of it. Certainly the Democrats aren't; I assume they haven't read up on it because they're too busy denouncing MoveOn and forcing Pete Stark to lick George Bush's boots.

(Jumblatt's statements were briefly noted by the Washington Post last year on page A15.)