The Washington Examiner’s Mark Tapscott asks people on the right to dial down the rhetoric a little bit on the cap-and-trade bill.

Could somebody please explain the difference between people on the Right calling the eight GOP congressmen who voted for the Obama-Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade anti-global warming energy bill “cap and traitors” and the far lefties at Moveon.org calling Gen. David Petraeus “General Betrayus”?

Sorry, folks, but, as much as I agree this bill is a disaster for America, calling these eight RINOs “traitors” is beyond the line. Here’s why: The word “traitor” has specific reference to national loyalty. Benedict Arnold was a traitor, as were spies like John Walker, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and Aldrich Hazen Ames. The traditional penalty for treason is death, though in recent decades that sentence has been all but forgotten in the U.S., though not in other nations.

When somebody promises you they will take a certain course of action not involving national loyalty, but then does another, they are a rat, a double-crosser, or a jerk, but they are not a traitor because national security is not jeopardized by their failure to do what they promised to do. The Obama-Waxman-Markey bill will certainly burden the U.S. economy, but it won’t destroy it. Thus, referring to the eight GOP members who voted for the bill is unjustified.

Following the publication of this editorial, Tapscott was promptly attacked by that faction of the right wing who believe it’s their turn to get their rage on and anybody who tries to talk them out of it is just another traitor.

UPDATE: A challenge for my critics

My goodness, I seem to have stuck my head into a hornet’s nest. Rather than attempting to respond to each of the arguments being presented by those who disagree with me (and there is a logical, non-abusive case to be made contrary to my view), I would simply ask my critics to show me one example of Ronald Reagan calling a single one of his opponents traitors.