Absolute. Moral. Authority.

For the media, the agony of the families of the dead only matters when the President is a Republican.

Not so many years ago, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd asserted that "the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute."

The sentiment of "absolute moral authority" for anti-war parents of soldiers lost in battle was embraced, amplified, and echoed by the Times, the Washington Post, and the overwhelming majority of print and broadcast media pundits while those parents served as useful political props for the media and progressive politicians. When the left took over both houses of Congress and the White House — and the mother they used as a bludgeon turned out to be a hate-spewing, conspiracy-mongering anti-Semite — the media quietly let the "absolute moral authority" card slip out of their hand.

[murdered ICE Agent Jaime] Zapata's father is a Vietnam combat veteran with two Purple Hearts, and his siblings work in law enforcement. The family isn't demanding to see the president, or delivering ditch-side sermons to a fawning media. All they want is answers.

Where is the media to bestow them with absolute moral authority and to champion their cause?

My latest, at Pajamas Media.