Previously, we noted that the left claims to hold to ethical standards in political discourse that, upon closer inspection, they don’t in fact hold at all.

Now, with that in mind, who said this, and about whom?

That appears to be a Catholic school plaid.. which I’m sure Mr. S’s kids attend. never saw a doll to match tho. My favorite is the brother…. He has an impressive look of Fear — maybe Darth Cheney is lurking nearby?

Here’s your answer.

And check out the whole post while you’re at it. And then read the comments. Not one editor or blogger at Wonkette, and not one liberal commenter, ever saw fit to ask anyone to stop viciously attacking the children in the photograph. Here’s the 5th comment in the thread.

Did Santorum’s kids get switched at the hospital, or did he adopt? I mean, he’s a dipstick and all, but he and his wife aren’t as homely, say, as Bob Barr and Lynne Cheney, just to name two Republican lens -busters – but those kids – Jesus, Mary, Joseph – they all look like they got smacked with the ugly stick.

Nobody busted that commenter’s chops for attacking Rick Santorum’s kids for crying the night their father lost his senate race and along with it, his job.

Here’s the comment that immediately followed the one above.

For a while now, I’ve felt for the oft-overlooked older but less pouty daughter. Her Jay Leno chin is in reverse proportion of the chinless sobbing girl in the foreground, who’s hogging up all the limelight. Anybody even know the story of the silent older sister?

Again, no one busted the commenter for attacking the girl’s appearance. A few comments later, we get a prediction that Santorum’s son will grow up to be a mass murderer.

Jesus, look at his son. Talk about uptight. $10 says he winds up on top of some tower at a Texas university with a high powered rifle.

No one took that commenter to task either.

A few comments later, a prediction for the Santorums’ older daughter.

FishbowlDC has learned that former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum’s (R-Penn.) pouty older daughter has signed on to be a stripper on the Fox late night Channel.

And again, no rebuttal, no condemnation for attacking a child.

And a few comments later:

Oh shit. My avatar is going to be completely obsoleted by this little slut’s new and exciting faces.

No rebuttal. No warnings to stop attacking the kids. Of course, having set the tone in the post and with Ken Layne’s own comment, how could Wonkette warn anyone for doing something they were already guilty of?

That’s how the lefties at Wonkette and all of the liberal commenters who chimed in on that post, which attacked the children of Rick Santorum one after the other, treat the children of their political opponents.

Classy. Ethical. Keep those boundaries tight, Wonkette.

The libertarians at Reason aren’t much better, fwiw.

What did the Firedoglakers say about the left and attacking kids, again?

The difference between the far right wing and the far left wing: the far right will do anything — anything — so long as the ends justifies the means. The far left folks have ethical boundaries that they try very hard not to cross: things like attacking other people’s minor children is bad form . . .

They must really hate the fact that all their sites have archives.

More: To answer your question, no, obviously not. This post is addressing the Firedoglake assertion that bloggers on the left place attacking minor children outside their ethical boundaries. To wonder if by posting this I’m comparing Wonkette to michellemalkin.com completely misses the point. Let me spell it out a little more clearly. Wonkette is owned by Nick Denton and edited by Ken Layne, both men of the left. That site was the career starter for Ana Marie Cox, currently a bigwig at Time.com. Did anyone on the left ever offer up a peep of criticism for Wonkette’s attack on the Santorum’s children? No. Did Ms. Cox ever offer any criticism of the attack linked above? No. Did Wonkette itself ever stop or even slow down the attack on Santorum’s children that occurred on its own site? No. So this isn’t just about Wonkette, but about the people who own and edit Wonkette and the people who read it, comment on it and link to it approvingly. How did they react to Wonkette’s attack on Rick Santorum’s children? Calling Wonkette a “gossip blog” doesn’t absolve it or its owner or readers or commenters of the attack that Wonkette launched on minor children, and pointing out the facts of that attack is in no way comparing that blog to another that’s entirely innocent of similar conduct. Apples and oranges.

Also, Wonkette is one of about 7 or 8 large leftwing blogs whose archives prove that many leftwing bloggers don’t regard attacking the minor children of political enemies as out of bounds. They seem to regard it as perfectly acceptable, except when they believe that they can score points by saying otherwise.