Let's play "make-believe" for a minute.
Let's pretend that yesterday, someone you like very much, a young activist relatively recently-arrived on the public scene, had some sort of mental breakdown. Perhaps it was Markos Moulitsas. Maybe he broke down due to the pressure of publicity and a flurry of negative press around Operation Hilarity. Maybe he suffered a psychotic break due to a longstanding latent illness. You don't know exactly what happened, at this point, and neither does anyone else except his doctors.
What you do know is that he did something horrifyingly embarrassing in his delusional state. Perhaps he stood in the street naked shouting gibberish. Perhaps that part's even on video. There are reports that some 911 callers thought he was masturbating.
It's possible that the cops who first arrived on the scene thought he might have been under the influence of drugs or alcohol. After talking with him for a few moments, however, they decided he needed mental health treatment and committed him to a 72-hour observation period in an inpatient facility. That's all anybody knows.
Remember for a second, we're talking about someone you actually like. Kos, perhaps, or if you don't like Kos, then maybe Jesse LaGreca. Or another young blogger/activist. Your choice.
What's your first reaction? Do you jump on the story and start making fun of him? Probably not. You're probably very concerned. You're worried about his family, and especially about his young child(ren). You sincerely hope that he gets better.
And when someone goes to RedState and digs up pages and pages of gleeful schadenfreude and masturbation jokes, you jump in the comments of that diary in righteous indignation. This is a private citizen! With a family! He's sick. He's not a criminal or a pervert. How dare they treat him this way?
Perhaps you're privately concerned about how the incident reflects on DKos/Occupy/whatever movement you're a part of. Perhaps you even cautiously voice that. But you don't actually believe yourself that one man's mental illness discredits an entire movement. It's much bigger than him - and besides, he's just sick. It's not a moral failing. Only a rightwinger would treat mental illness like a moral failing.
Am I right?
Now look at yourselves. Seriously.
Whatever criticisms you may have of IC - and there are many, and some of them are well-founded - they are wholly and entirely separate from what happened to Jason Russell. There's no hypocrisy here. He's not a politician, or even publicly aligned with a political party, and in any case, he wasn't caught doing anything he's publicly advocated against. He wasn't enslaving African children.
He's just a guy, and by all reports a decent and well-meaning and idealistic guy, who had a breakdown. And the circumstances are horribly embarrassing for his family and his friends and his coworkers and his poor little boy whom 100 million people have seen on video with him in the past week. And that's a human story, not a political story.
Have some decency. Please. Have some compassion. If not for Jason Russell, then have it in the name of all the DKos members who have suffered from mental illness.
Thank you.
And yes, I'm well aware that there are many worse things in the world than some bloggers making fun of a privileged white guy. Fine. It's still wrong. And it's one of the few truly wrong things I've seen go on here for more than a day without being called out.