The latest two-minute hate making the rounds has to do with Kos, at the Daily Kos.

The short story is: Kos said that he didn't mourn the deaths of mercenaries, and a storm blew up.

This was his explanation:

There's been much ado about my indifference to the Mercenary deaths in Falluja a couple days ago. I wrote in some diary comments somewhere that "I felt nothing" and "screw them".

My language was harsh, and, in reality, not true. Fact is, I did feel something. That's why I was so angry.

I was angry that five soldiers -- the real heroes in my mind -- were killed the same day and got far lower billing in the newscasts. I was angry that 51 American soldiers paid the ultimate price for Bush's folly in Iraq in March alone. I was angry that these mercenaries make more in a day than our brave men and women in uniform make in an entire month. I was angry that the US is funding private armies, paying them $30,000 per soldier, per month, while the Bush administration tries to cut our soldiers' hazard pay. I was angry that these mercenaries would leave their wives and children behind to enter a war zone on their own violition.

So I struck back.

Unlike the vast majority of people in this country, I actually grew up in a war zone. I witnessed communist guerillas execute students accused of being government collaborators. I was 8 years old, and I remember stepping over a dead body, warm blood flowing from a fresh wound. Dodging bullets while at market. I lived in the midsts of hate the likes of which most of you will never understand (Clinton and Bush hatred is nothing compared to that generated when people kill each other for politics or race or nationality). There's no way I could ever describe the ways this experience colors my worldview.

Back to Iraq, our men and women in uniform are there under orders, trying to make the best of an impossible situation. The war is not their fault, and I will always defend their honor and bravery to the end of my days. But the mercenary is a whole different deal. They willingly enter a war zone, and do so because of the paycheck. They're not there for humanitarian reasons (I doubt they'd donate half their paycheck to the Red Cross or whatever). They're there because the money is DAMN good. They answer to no one except their CEO. They are dangerous, hence international efforts (however fruitless they may be) to ban their use.

So not only was I wrong to say I felt nothing over their deaths, I was lying. I felt way too much. Nobody deserves to die. But in the greater scheme of things, there are a lot of greater tragedies going on in Iraq (51 last month, plus countless civilians and Iraqi police). That those tragedies are essentially ignored these days is, ultimately, the greatest tragedy of all.

Needless to say, this and subsequent apologies were not taken by the keyboard warriors who are so incensed by Kos' comments.

The dead mercenaries were americans, and for the deaths of americans we must mourn.

Leading the pack, theres lgf.

Bit of a policy switch on their part. Here we find Mr. Johnson and his brigade of good taste commandos "dancing on the grave" of american activist Rachel Corrie, who apparently lost her right to not be verbally desecrated after death in perpetuity when she chose to side with the palestinian cause in Israel. Ms. Corrie was run down by a bulldozer while attempting to block the destruction of a palestinian house.

Of the death of "St Pancake," Mr. Johnson said this:

In other words, she arrogantly believed her US citizenship and white skin conferred invulnerability upon her saintly corpus?

Presumably that reality check is some comfort to the families of the dead contractors.

A year later, the crowd at lgf gave their Idiotarian of the Year award to the late Ms. Corrie, as approvingly covered by James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal, which likewise calls for only the strictest adherence to the nil nisi bonum rule for american deaths:

Little Green Footballs has given out its second annual Robert Fisk Award for Idiotarian of the Year. This year's winner: Rachel Corrie, the terror advocate who died in a bulldozer accident last March. Corrie picked up 28.8% of the vote in the 10-candidate finals, edging out Michael Moore (26.7%), who also finished second (behind Jimmy Carter) in 2002. Moore, who we hear dedicated his most recent "book" to Corrie, is the Susan Lucci of idiotarians. As one LGF commenter writes, "Michael Moore has to be crushed he didn't win."

Get it? Crushed? Like, under a bulldozer?

I'd give credit to the wag in question, but it was an old joke. One of the first lgf commenters to address the death of this american suggested that someone run a bulldozer over Mr. Moore.

And there was much rejoicing.

Of course, in the good taste sweepstakes, you cant get much more appropriate than the Anti Idiotarian Rottweiler, also deeply offended by Kos comments, who with his readers sent pizzas (get it? Pizza? Like someone looks like after a bulldozer runs over them?) to the IDF in case anyone was peckish after the strenuous work of running Ms. Corrie over with a bulldozer.

Professor Reynolds, himself an advocate of harsh remedies against enemies of the state, does not himself feel the need to apologize for the Rottweiler and has not delinked to lgf. lgf, in turn, has not delinked from the Rottweiler, despite the fact that Ms. Corries death was not the only time that personage has stepped into the arena to celebrate the death of an american. The difference is, the other time, he tried to arrange for one.

The selftitled Rottweiler, a gentleman with strong opinions about his own masculinity which he is not loath to share with the gentlemen who make up his audience, Took exception to a Kucinich flash ad criticizing the war, suggested that the blogger who produced the ad be killed from behind and his face taken off with a belt sander, and provided a helpful map to that bloggers house house (with a star showing the location) from nearby Fort Dix labelled Road Trip.

Amusingly, the death threat was sparked by the Rottweiler taking offense that Kucinich "used our war dead to push his agenda."

Thank god irony is dead. It would never survive this.

I think the last word here should go to prominent bloghawk Andrew Sullivan, who had this to say about americans going overseas to fight and die:

I'm sorry but I pay for those soldiers to fight in a volunteer army. They are servants of people like me who will never fight. Yes, servants of civil masters. And they will do what they are told by people who would never go to war. That's called a democracy.

Chirp.

Kos did not celebrate the deaths of americans. If you make excuses for this war, you did.