Yes, folks, the Seattle Weekly has discovered this. The paper's cover story by Rick Anderson, "Armed & Litigious," is subtitled, "Ex-Con Alan Gottlieb is taking the fight against gun control to the Supreme Court--and fattening his wallet in the process."

For liberals I know in journalism, to make a living is a big, big sin in regards to certain people. Tim Eyman is one. Alan Gottlieb is another. Journalists who disagree with these guys think it's deeply wrong and unfair that they feed their families by what they do. By harping on this, these journalists insinuate in their stories that these guys are just in it for the money. The implication is that if Gottlieb could make more money as a tree pruner, or baking apple pies, he'd be doing that; and if Eyman could make more money selling watches, he'd still be doing that. And this is almost certainly not true. These guys are doing what they want to do.

Liberal journalists don't question the motives of people on their political side--the liberal political consultants, progressive fundraisers of the feminist or environmentalist stripe, etc. But so many people on the Left can't imagine why any good person would disagree with them. Their enemies must be in it for the money! Thus Anderson (or maybe his editor at the Weekly) just can't help putting in that little dig in the subtitle, "and fattening his wallet in the process," and the final (and telling) line of the story, "and fill the coin box in the process."

I pick on Anderson not because he's the only one who does this, but because so many do it. When have they ever done this to the royalty of Planned Parenthood, Futurewise or the SEIU? The key people in those organizations are making a living at what they do. And that's fine. Good for them. What they make is their business. And what Gottlieb makes is his.

In the midst of all this progressive indigestion, the real issue of Anderson's story gets lost: that gun-rights advocates, having won at the Supreme Court in the case against Washington, D.C., have filed a much broader case against the city of Chicago. What is their constitutional argument? Why did the Supreme Court rule their way in the Washington, D.C., case? Does their argument make sense? That is the part that interests me. It doesn't interest the Seattle Weekly.