Forget the Swine Flu.  The Democrats in Washington these days have a rampant case of Foot-in-Mouth Disease.

Whether you're an African-American or an innocent developmentally-disabled child, the Democrats have some choice words for you.

How do they hate thee?  Let us count the ways...

- During a private Caucus meeting with the Democratic members of Congress, Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel called a group of Congressmen "F*cking Retards."  When asked by parents of special needs children to apologize, Rahm refused.  Former Presidential candidate Sarah Palin (and mother of a Down Syndrome son) asked him to apologize.  He refused.  Yesterday, he finally accepted a meeting with the CEO of the Special Olympics. But he still refuses to apologize publicly.  If he were a Republican, he would have been run out of town.

- Last year, on the nationally-televised Jay Leno Show, then-candidate Barack Obama described what he felt like when he went bowling:  "It looked like the Special Olympics."  The implication, of course, was that he looked "retarded" while bowling.  He later apologized, but only after pressure from the Shriver family - including many of whom had endorsed him.

- This week, Obama's Education Secretary Arne Duncan made a gaffe of Hurricane proportions when he said that "Hurricane Katrina was the best thing that ever happened to the Education system in New Orleans."  Two days later, after outrage from educators in New Orleans, Arne Duncan apologized and quickly suggested that he had used a poor choice of words.  If he were a Republican, he would have been run out of town.

- The "poor choice of words" excuse seems to be making the rounds these days.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was outed in the new book "Game Change" for his opinion that Barack Obama would be more electable because he did not have the typical "negro dialect." He finally apologized, saying it was a "poor choice of words."  Not a poor choice of thought, mind you, but a poor choice of words.  If he were a Republican, he would have been run out of town.

- In the book "Game Change,"  the authors reported that Bill Clinton suggested last year to then-Senator Ted Kennedy that "A few years ago, [Obama] would have been serving us coffee."  It was a statement so offensive, that Ted Kennedy ultimately endorsed Obama over Clinton's wife, Hillary.  In the month since this report came out, Bill Clinton has neither denied the statement nor offered an explanation of it.  If he were a Republican, he would have been run out of town.

What's even worse than these statements is the Media's soft condoning of such statements. Had ANY of these things been said by a Republican, they would have had a clock in the corner of the TV screen, counting down the hours since the apology, and the hours left until that official resigned.

You see, kids, it doesn't matter if you're rude, crude, politically incorrect, or racist... As long as you're a Democrat, you're like that tree that falls in the forest that nobody hears. Or, maybe nobody wants to hear.