UPDATED: Why is Byron York silent about Limbaugh and Beck calling Obama a Nazi?

The conservative writer continues to play dumb, and now it's getting embarrassing.

Over the weekend I noted the extraordinary double standard that's now on display within the conservative press and it's deafening silence over Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck's recent Nazi obsession.

They shrieking hypocrisy revolves around the fact that during the Bush years, writers like Byron York were out front in ridiculing liberals who dared suggest the Republican president was like Adolf Hitler. From the perspective of the National Review, the Bush/Hitler comparison was loopy, irresponsible and simply highlighted how deranged the left-wing was; how completely unhinged it had become and how its hatred of Bush had become all-consuming. The Hitler chatter was part of the "Stupidity vortex," as NR's Jonah Goldberg wrote.

But today, with Limbaugh and Beck dipping into the Nazi pool? It's mostly crickets from the conservative media. Few writers will even acknowledge it's happening, let alone condemn it. ("Stupidity vortex"? Never heard of it!)

As I highlighted, York during the Bush years wrote again and again about how liberals had embraced the misguided Nazi comparison. (York loved to tarnish libs with the Hitler brush.) Yet today, nothing about Limbaugh and Beck.

Well, on Sunday York, now at the right-wing Washington Examiner, finally got around to addressing Limbaugh's Nazi chatter. But guess what? Suddenly, York made no sweeping generalizations about people who compare presidents to Nazis, and York certainly did not condemn it the way conservative writers robotically (and cheerfully)  did when Bush was in power. Instead, York simply raised the issue as a way to serve as Limbaugh's errand boy. On  Sunday, York dutifully posted the spin Limbaugh needed distributed to the masses after New York Times columnist David Brooks called Limbaugh's Nazi talk "insane" on national television. 

For a writer who seemed so deeply concerned when liberal raised the Nazi specter a few years ago, York today is amazingly unconcerned about Limbaugh's new rhetoric.

UPDATED: By the way, Limbaugh's spin posted by York in response to Brooks' "insane" put-down made no sense. Limbaugh claimed he wasn't surprised that Democratic leaders in  Congress didn't like his Nazi talk. But it was Brooks, a conservative columnist, who labeled his rhetoric "insane."