reverting to form

It's been interesting to watch the paragons of virtue on the Right, the Republican shills in the media, react to Jill Carroll, Cynthia McKinney and the Duke lacrosse rape allegations over the past few days.

The potshots at Carroll, a freelance journalist for the Christian Science Monitor, were reprehensible. The idiots on Don Imus' show were particularly nasty. One even suggested that Carroll was having "Zarkawi's baby." All because she said -- immediately after her release -- that she had been treated well.

The attacks on McKinney, who represents suburban Atlanta in the House of Representatives, was attacked viciously after she had a confrontation with a member of House Security. Neal Boortz, who himself could win an unmade-bed lookalike contest, said the congresswoman "looked likea welfare drag queen."

And good-old Rush Limbaugh weighed in on the Duke situation, where an exotic dancer claimed she was raped by three members of the university's lacrosse team, by claiming that former Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton was "trying to figure out how he can get involved in the deal down there at Duke where the lacrosse team ... supposedly, you know, raped some, uh, hos."

These are the same people who claim that they, and their fellow Republicans, are the ones upholding family values.

The problem is, they're the Paris Hilton family values. The Donald Trump family values. The Tom DeLay family values.

And those are no values my family would ever, ever abide.

More soon.