Brendan Nyhan thinks so:
Of course, as Media Matters and Tapped’s Adam Serwer pointed out, Limbaugh makes similarly offensive “jokes” on his show attacking dissent and comparing liberals to terrorists. And yes, he is far more powerful and influential than Sykes. But if it’s wrong when Limbaugh does it, then it’s wrong when Sykes does it too.
The hypocrisy here is staggering (especially in the Media Matters case). Imagine that a conservative comedian had accused Keith Olbermann of treason at the WHCA dinner back in 2004 and said he should be waterboarded. Would liberals have minimized the comments as “jokes” and catalogued all the offensive things Olbermann has said on his show? I don’t think so.
I think this is a bit overrought. I do think that to the extent that liberals may have found Sykes’ jokes about Limbaugh being “treasonous” funny (I didn’t, not because I was offended but because it wasn’t, you know, funny), it was only because they enjoyed seeing Limbaugh get a taste of his own medicine for once. They found it funny because it was ironic: Limbaugh is usually the chief of the patriotic thought police. Sykes’ jokes should be viewed in their political context.
Personally, I’ve always disagreed with the notion that conservatives who want Obama to “fail” are being unpatriotic, they just think it would be better for the country in the long run if Obama didn’t succeed, and I feel like the handwringing over Limbaugh’s original comments is mostly political. The statement galls liberals, partly because they know they couldn’t get away with making similar statements with a Republican in office.
It would be hypocritical if the argument at the root of Sykes’ jokes became central part of liberal advocacy, if liberals embraced the idea that anyone who disagreed with them or the president is treasonous, but it won’t. Or at least, I hope it won’t. While everything Limbaugh says becomes part of the conservative lexicon, Sykes’ routine will be mostly forgotten in a few months, at most, while conservatives will continue to present anyone who disagrees with their policy agenda as betraying America, rather than simply disagreeing with their vision of what the country should be, even if that person is the President of the United States.
— A. Serwer
