During the last election, we remember how Dick Cheney was lambasted for a not-very-public use of the F-word to a colleague who trashed him behind his back, and spoke nicely to his face. And how everyone was mute about John Kerry's frequent use of the same word in a Rolling Stone interview.

When it comes to bad language, the perennial example offered by the left is Ann Coulter, and the same half-dozen incidents. Why? Because without Ann, they'd have almost nothing: an off-mike remark by Bush, a meant-to-be-private remark by Cheney... -- inviting instant full-throttle faux prudery.

News Buckit has answered the Instapundit/InstaPunk challenge to compare the rate of obscenity between blogs of the left and right, and claims to have found an 18-to-1 ratio (left-to-right) of uses of Carlin's "seven words".

Frankly, I'm not surprised.

Some might counter: Well, they purge obscene posts on Free Republic. Even if that's true: so what? I usually do the same here. And I'd welcome (but not hold my breath waiting for) the same policy from DailyKos and DU. It shows a committment to keeping a tiny portion of the net a bit less vile. I'd also add that probably 90% of the time, those obscene comments are coming from either a lefty or some pro-Quixtar nutjob.

The other big objection is that a number of top right-leaning blogs (Instapundit) don't allow comments. I guess the theory is supposed to be that all of us righties, if we could only comment, would gush forth amazing amounts of verbal sewage. But that seems a baseless allegation, given how clean most other right-wing blogs are. The problem more appears to be (as LaShawn Barber and Michelle Malkin have enountered) the tremendous volume of hateful and obscene comments from critics, not supporters.