Box checked. Is there a single liberal who’ll listen?

One reporter today asked White House press secretary Jay Carney about reports that the Veep had used the term, wondering if “the president thinks that’s appropriate discourse?”

“No, he doesn’t, and neither does the vice president,” Carney said. “And I think the vice president spoke to this and made clear that he didn’t say those words, and I think the congressman in question has said that he regrets using them.”

Carney said the use of the word “was a product of an emotional discussion, very passionately held positions in this debate, but that does not mean that it’s appropriate. And it’s not. The vice president doesn’t think so; the president doesn’t think so. Any kind of comments like that are simply not conducive to the kind of political discourse that we hope to have.”

Lots of people are writing about this today, not because there’s anything penetrating to say but simply to vent the volcanic frustration of being lectured by our Moral Betters about rhetoric six months ago and then compared to terrorists by every Democrat from Joe Biden on down this week — the same week Gabby Giffords returns to Congress, unbelievably enough. Jonah Goldberg uncorked this acidic rant at the media; Ace is pushing out multiple posts keyed to the commentariat’s excesses, like this repulsive cartoon; and poor Guy Benson is desperately trying to record each and every new “terrorist” analogy as it pops up, although the sheer pace seems to be wearing him down. They’re all worth reading but there’s really nothing to say here that you don’t already know: Namely, the left and its “civility” meme are transparent frauds. They always were, almost from the moment that lunatic pulled the trigger in Tucson. I remember being at the computer with Twitter open as news of the shooting was breaking on cable and, so help me, the accusations about Palin’s crosshairs map and right-wing violence had started within an hour. In fact, I remember it as being closer to 20-30 minutes but I’ll allow for slight memory error. There’s your civility lesson: They couldn’t wait until we even knew the suspect’s name before accusing their opponents of assassination. Fast-forward six months and here’s what Joe Nocera is excreting on the Times’s op-ed page:

You know what they say: Never negotiate with terrorists. It only encourages them.

These last few months, much of the country has watched in horror as the Tea Party Republicans have waged jihad on the American people. Their intransigent demands for deep spending cuts, coupled with their almost gleeful willingness to destroy one of America’s most invaluable assets, its full faith and credit, were incredibly irresponsible. But they didn’t care. Their goal, they believed, was worth blowing up the country for, if that’s what it took…

For now, the Tea Party Republicans can put aside their suicide vests. But rest assured: They’ll have them on again soon enough. After all, they’ve gotten so much encouragement.

Weigel counters that the “terrorist” talk is obviously a metaphor. That’s basically true, but then so were Palin’s crosshairs and liberals didn’t cut her slack on that, right? Besides, I thought the crux of the left’s point about Tucson was that we have to be careful about language that demonizes our opponents, whether metaphorically or not, because some fragile psycho might take it as a cue to “purge the evil” among us or whatever. Where the stopping point is on that slippery slope of rhetorical hygiene, I have no idea, but oh well. The left wanted to play this game, so now we’re playing. Reap the whirlwind.

Here’s Rush Limbaugh talking about this today, but again, any commentary is superfluous. Liberals wanted to use the Giffords shooting as a political bludgeon against the right; they succeeded to a remarkable extent, despite the total, absolute lack of evidence that Loughner was motivated by conservatives; and now their faces are being rubbed in their own pile of shinola. The end. But since we’re trafficking in terrorist metaphors now and everyone’s super cool with that again (except Jay Carney), let me gently remind my “friends” across the aisle: You’re the ones holding the bomb. Click the image to watch.