Sally Kohn makes excuses for poor Ilhan Omar (but not without blaming Ben Shapiro, Sean Hannity, and 'the right wing')

Sarah D | 6:47 PM on March 07, 2019

Are you sitting down? We hope so, because we wouldn’t want you to hit your head on the floor when you pass out after learning that Sally Kohn has a terrible take on Ilhan Omar and Democrats’ anti-Semitism problem:

.@SallyKohn on the single greatest source of hypocrisy in American life: The right's revealing hypocrisy over Rep. Ilhan Omar's comments is painful to watch https://t.co/Oe2DtFjqFx via @usatoday @usatodayopinion

— Jill Lawrence (@JillDLawrence) March 7, 2019

You think the headline’s bad? Wait’ll you get to the meat of Kohn’s argument:

[Ben] Shapiro and [Sean] Hannity are now among those bullying Congresswoman Ilhan Omar — smearing her as anti-Semitic because of her criticism of the state of Israel and calling for her to face official penalties by loosing [sic] her committee assignments. Omar, it bears pointing out for the conservative set, is an American — and Hannity, Shapiro and the right are trying desperately to silence her.

The right wing is the single greatest source of hypocrisy in modern American life.

…

Yes, some of Ilhan Omar’s statements evoked anti-Semitic tropes, but she apologized, explained herself and is learning. You’d think those on the right who routinely suggest the left is too quick shout about political correctness and read the worst intentions between the lines of every utterance would be the ones rushing to give Omar the benefit of the doubt. But the benefit of the doubt is, like everything else in the United States today, subject to partisanship. We only give the benefit of the doubt to our own side.

The difference, of course, is clear. Omar’s missteps evoking anti-Semitic tropes were called out by her colleagues on the left and the right. And Omar apologized or tried to clarify her intent. Whereas [Steve] King not only was rarely asked to apologize for his many many overtly racist and anti-immigrant and Islamophobic statements over the years but was actively defended by the right. Yet now those same perpetual defenders of hate on their side want America to believe that a Democratic congresswoman, who just happens to be a black Muslim, is the hateful one. She’s now getting death threats.

Yeah, King never faced any consequences from the GOP for what he said. He was just condemned by a ton of conservatives and stripped of his committee assignments. But other than that, he got off scot-free. Unlike Ilhan Omar, whose “colleagues on the left” called her out by cobbling together a watered-down resolution that didn’t even mention her name and could only manage a lukewarm condemnation of anti-Semitism, and only if other forms of bigotry were mentioned. Poor thing’s still on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. And we’d also like to know which GOP politicians are condoning death threats against Omar.

Yeah, Sally. The right wing’s hypocrisy sure is painful.