Conservative views stand on their own merit

Bill O'Reilly has in his "Talking Points Memo" today commentary concerning the portrayal of conservative viewpoints in opinion pieces on the CBS Evening News - detailing where supposedly unbiased anchor Katie Couric refers to the views of one man as "repugnant". That man is the father of one of the boys slain at Columbine. His comments:

BRIAN ROHRBOUGH, FATHER: I am saddened and shaken by the shooting at an Amish school today and last week's school murders. When my son Dan was murdered on the sidewalk at Columbine High School on April 20th, 1999, I hoped that would be the last school shooting.

Since that day, I tried to answer the question why did this happen? This country is in a moral free fall. For over two generations, the public school system has taught in a moral vacuum, expelling God from the school and from the government, replacing Him with evolution, where the strong kill the weak without moral consequences. And life has no inherent value.

We teach there are no absolutes, no right or wrong. And I assure you, the murder of innocent children is always wrong, including by abortion.

Abortion has diminished the value of children. Suicide has become an acceptable action and has further emboldened these criminals. And we are seeing an epidemic increase in murder/suicide attacks on our children.

Sadly, our schools are not safe. In fact, we now witness that within our schools, our children have become a target of terrorists from within the United States.

Let's set aside the argument that even someone who disagrees with this man's views should not find them "repugnant" in the traditional sense of the word. Let's instead focus on the point I think O'Reilly misses: the contrast with the case of Cindy Sheehan. I thought that a parent's loss of his child innoculated him from any dissention. Where are the accusations on the part of conservatives that this father deserves this priveleged treatment?

Conservatives, by and large, submit their views to the free marketplace of ideas, either for consumption or rejection. Liberals, again by and large, require special status (innoculation) for their views to gain more than the briefest of acceptance. Their views tend to be like the poorly matched organ transplant: the recipient's body knows something is wrong with it and anti-rejection drugs are required to deceive the body into accepting the rogue organ. Whereas, give the patient an organ superbly matched to his body and little or no such drugs are required. You can look at the useful idiots in positions of power (read: media, politicians, actors, the "idolized") as the anti-rejection drugs which keep the rogue organs (liberal views) within the body (American social consciousness).