BY MARTIN KICH

You may remember (it was less than a decade ago, though that hardly seems possible) when this salute with a hand holding a styrofoam coffee cup was considered an unforgivable insult to our military:

The talking heads were out in force to mock and to denounce the president for his failure to exhibit even the most fundamental level of respect that those in our military services have earned.

Where is any proportionate sense of outrage now?

The rhetorical question has become a cliché, but what if any of the things that Trump has reportedly said about the military had been attributed to Obama—or even now could be attributed to him?

What if Obama had simply asserted, as Trump had during the 2016 campaign, that the regard for John McCain’s heroism was overblown?

What if he had deferred so repeatedly and obviously and obsequiously to Vladimir Putin?

What if he had talked about exchanging love letters with Kim Jong Un?

Where was any comparable sense of outrage when this picture was published?

The people who make a big show of insisting on the importance of requiring college courses in the nation’s foundational documents and who complain about the way in which “liberal” professors “brainwash” their students have been conspicuously silent on these matters.

I think that they owe us an explanation of exactly how such selectively applied outrage reflects the inviolable principles that they insist that they are striving to preserve against incessant and pernicious attempts to undermine them.

For people who are often so loud, they are awfully silent.