TPM’s Josh Marshall has a series of posts on the Ahmadinejad to Ground Zero controversy. One post titled “Grow Up” asks, “Am I the only one embarrassed by the dingbat brouhaha over Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s attempt to visit Ground Zero to lay a wreath?” Responding to readers in a follow up, he repeatedly writes, “who cares?” if Ahmadinejad were to use such a visit for propaganda purposes.

But just a few weeks ago, when Rudy Giuliani was scheduled to participate in a ceremony at Ground Zero for the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Marshall’s site was raising hell over the fact that Giuliani was exploiting the tragedy for political gain.

So in other words, it’s hard for Marshall to see why it would be a problem to use tax dollars to provide security for a holocaust denier to visit hallowed ground and gain a propaganda image when he is a sponsor of terrorism who is currently responsible for U.S. soldiers being killed in Iraq, and who has consistently threatened the U.S. and our ally Israel within the context of seeking nuclear weapons. It’s simply difficult for Marshall to see what the big deal is. And yet, it’s perfectly appropriate to get worked up into a tizzy when the man who served as mayor when the event happened, who was lauded for his leadership by most of the country, reads a few lines as part of a ceremony that he has participated in every year since the tragedy.

There’s been a lot of talk recently about the psychological differences between liberals and conservatives. It’s hard to think of a much better example to shed light on how different our values are than this one.