PETER WEHNER: Bill Clinton’s Double Standard On Rhetoric. “The problem for Mr. Clinton is that his concern about the dangers of incendiary rhetoric seems to have taken flight during the two terms of the Bush presidency, as well as during his own. Regarding the former, there was, for starters, the 2006 film, The Death of a President, on the assassination of President Bush. . . . Moreover, George W. Bush was, during his two terms in office, routinely called a war criminal, an international terrorist, and compared to Hitler [see a photo gallery here and here]. Signs with bullet holes in Bush’s forehead, with blood running down his face, were all part of the fun and games. The president was accused of moral cowardice by Al Gore, of being a liar and the anti-Christ, and of being a totalitarian and dictatorial leader. Members of Congress such as Keith Ellison compared the attacks on September 11 to the Reichstag fire. . . . It’s also worth recalling that the Clinton administration organized, coordinated, and participated in some of the ugliest rhetoric we have seen in recent American politics.”

Clinton’s remarks are serving the salutary purpose of reminding people who and what he really was, and dispelling the glow of nostalgia for his presidency that even some conservatives and libertarians were beginning to feel.

UPDATE: Remember the Craig Kilborn / George W. Bush “Snipers Wanted” moment?

VOLCANO UPDATE: Some cool pics from Eyjafjallajokull.

THE SOVIETIZING of American therapy?

SUBURBAN SURVIVAL GEAR: A list.

VIDEO: Byron York discusses efforts by liberals to ‘pre-tar’ the Tea Party protests as a violent movement:

Meanwhile, somebody should ask Bill Clinton — and Barack Obama — about this: Beaten Jindal Staffer Says Protesters are the Perpetrators.

Bautsch’s leg was “stomped” by her assailants causing breaks in four places that required surgery, a steel rod and seven screws to reconstruct. Brown suffered a broken jaw and nose, a brain concussion and black eye. . . . The main group planning the protest according to their fliers was The Iron Rail Collective, a New Orleans-based anarchist group in the vein of those who make news in America and worldwide as they trash and burn cities whenever and wherever world leaders meet.

(Other reported protesters at the SRLC event included a group of University of New Orleans “UNO” professors and local Democrat groups.)

Their signs at the GOP event protest included the capital “A” with a circle, an anarchist gang-style symbol, and such gems as, “Capitalist f***s,” “Tax the Rich,” “JINDAL, tell your rich friends to GO HOME,” and “Ruling class robbers” to name a few.

Select protesters attempted to hide their identity by tying scarves or bandanas around their heads to cover the lower half of their faces right below the eyes.

The hypocrisy has gotten out of control. All the actual violence seems to be coming from lefty thugs. It’s just the hypothetical violence that seems to involve the right:

LOTS OF INTERESTING STUFF over at H+ Magazine.

FASTER, PLEASE: Stimulating Healing In The Heart. “While the human heart was once thought incapable of regeneration, growing evidence shows that even the adult heart can grow new cells, albeit slowly. Roger Hajjar, director of the Cardiovascular Research Center at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, in New York, and Bernhard Kuhn, a cardiologist at Children’s Hospital Boston, aim to harness this regenerative ability to change how heart disease is treated.”

CHRIS CHRISTIE GOES AFTER THE TEACHER’S UNION: “They’re really going to wish he were dead now.”

ANOTHER BILL CLINTON DRESSING-DOWN from Radley Balko.

Clinton doesn’t have a lot of moral authority, these days.

BLACK TEA PARTY PROTESTERS vs. Keith Olbermann.

HERMAN WOUK: IS GOD A MATHEMATICIAN?

BRITISH DRIVERS LOVE the Aston-Martin DB9.

THE IMPORTANCE OF homemade ice cream. I can’t spare the counter space for one of these, but it does seem kinda . . . cool.

REASON TV: Three Reasons To Legalize Pot Now.

WHY BILL CLINTON NEEDS TO stop talking about Oklahoma City.

The Terrorist attack on my hometown soil was years before 9/11, and was at the time “the worst Terrorist attack on American soil.” We had never witnessed anything quite like it – save for the somewhat unsuccessful (in the minds of the Terrorists, at least) first attack on the World Trade Center in 1994. I will never forget being unable to get a phone call through to my family, the chilling sound of sirens screaming throughout the city non-stop for hours upon hours that day, the CNN cameras converging on our city, the spotlights guiding the intricate search-and-rescue operations that went on ‘round the clock, word of victims still trapped under the building a full week later, and watching my fellow Oklahomans literally giving their fellow man the shirts off their backs. Just as I’m sure New Yorkers will never forget the sights, smells and sounds of New York on 9/11, I will never forget.

And I won’t soon forget Bill Clinton’s careless comments, either.

Read the whole thing. Plus, from Jacob Sullum: Bill Clinton’s Fertilizer Bomb.

Note that Clinton does not have the guts to say outright that people who criticize the government too harshly have blood on their hands. Instead he strongly suggests it, then retreats to the position that criticism is OK, though violence isn’t, as if anyone were suggesting otherwise. Still, he wants to draw a line between “criticizing a policy or a politician,” which is “part of the lifeblood of democracy,” and “demonizing the government that guarantees our freedoms and the public servants who enforce our laws,” which encourages mass homicide. But since he offers no examples of either, it’s hard to know what sort of speech he considers beyond the pale. For example if I call Clinton a state-worshiping crybaby who equates opposition with sedition, is that legitimate criticism or demonization?

Blood libels. They told me if I voted for John McCain, we’d have a regime where any criticism of the government was regarded as tantamount to treason. And they were right!

UPDATE: Remember when protest was patriotic? “Funny how fast the worm — or maybe it’s the pitchfork — has turned. Now that we’re seeing genuine expressions of populist discontent, not put together by establishment packagers on behalf of an Officially Sanctioned Aggrieved Group, we’re suddenly hearing complaints of ‘mob rule’ and demands for civility. Civility is fine, but those who demand it should show it. The Obama administration — and its corps of willing supporters in the press and the punditry — has set the tone, and they are now in a poor position to complain.”

FROM SLATE, an interactive Tea Party map. It’s incomplete, because it uses Meetup data, but it’s interesting.

BEHIND THE AIR FORCE’S secret robotic spaceplane. Well, not that secret. . . .

PETER BEINART: Elena Kagan’s Achilles’ Heel. Obama’s potential Supreme Court pick banned military recruiting at Harvard Law. “Barring the military from campus is a bit like barring the president or even the flag. It’s more than a statement of criticism; it’s a statement of national estrangement.”

SOVIET STATUES as comedy fountains.

IN JUNE, the Humanity+ Summit at Harvard. Aubrey de Grey and Ray Kurzweil will be there.

FASTER, PLEASE? Anti-Cancer Agent Stops Metastasis In Its Tracks. (Via Jerry Pournelle, who comments: “I have a friend at Sloan Kettering with inoperable stomach cancer and about a year; if that could be prevented from mestasizing long enough for chemo to shrink it until it can be operated on, the benefit would be obvious. Of course before the FDA will approve it for use with anyone including those who will die without it, the year will probably be up.”)

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON’T READ THE BILL: Congress May Get Fined Under Its Own Health Care Law.

DAN RIEHL: Ben Smith Needs A History Lesson After McCotter Smear.

DAVE KOPEL: “Former President Bill Clinton is back to practicing one of his core competencies: exploiting the 1995 mass murders in Oklahoma City for political advantage in order to suppress criticism of himself and his political allies. Accordingly, some persons might be interested in reviewing the multiple severe injuries that President Clinton inflicted on the Constitution in his ‘anti-terrorism’ bill and his public relations campaign for the bill, a topic which I explored in a 101 page article in a 1996 special memorial issue of the Oklahoma City Law Review.”

UPDATE: Ann Althouse: Why is Bill Clinton suddenly making such a spectacle of himself over the Tea Party? “There was nothing partisan about who lived and died in the Oklahoma City bombing. Children — individuals who never thought about politics — died that day. Yet here is Bill Clinton using his special prominence today to unleash a political attack to push back a populist movement that threatens his political party.”

IN THE MAIL: Not 1, not 2, but three copies of Aaron Klein’s The Manchurian President: Barack Obama’s Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists. That’s as many copies as the publisher sent me of Andrew Sullivan’s last book. Is there a connection? Beats me — I didn’t read either of ’em.