Who uses free speech?

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld answered critics of the war in a guest column in Sunday's editions of The Washington Post, asserting that if Americans were to turn away from Iraq, it would be "the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis."

Donny Rummy, drunk on power, war and who knows what else, makes a Nazi comparison (the above is from Paul Burkhardt's "Anti-War Rallies Mark Iraq Anniversary," Associated Press). It must be nice to have free speech.

The right does. They make Nazi comparisons and no one bats an eyes. They make jokes about, as Ann Coulter did, bombing The New York Times and no one gets outraged.

They say whatever the hell they want. And, of course, they don't manufacture outrage against their own.

At some point, the left might want to take a look at that. Well, not the left. The left, the real left, isn't worried that a joke Whoopi Goldberg told upset a few blue hairs. It's just the timid leadership. And the timid kind-of-maybe-left writers (like the one who couldn't bring himself to lisp a defense of Susan Sontag).

We disagree with Rumsfeld comparison and his "logic." We'll say he's wrong. We won't scream, "How dare he!" It's free speech. Maybe if more people used it, not just the right, we wouldn't have embarrassing moments like Dick Durbin offering an apology under pressure?

Rumsfeld comparison fails on many levels. But in terms of free speech, he has every right to make it (and flaunt his ignorance).