If I called the White House f—ing retarded, I’d get in trouble. This is because, as a writer, I’m held to a certain unspoken standard.

Arrogance rears its ugly form in many ways, not the least of which being how we communicate our thoughts.

Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s chief of staff, chose to communicate his thoughts by referring to liberal activists as “f—ing retarded” this past summer.

Frankly, Emanuel could do and has done much worse. This is the man who sent a dead fish to a pollster. I’ve long since abandoned looking to Obama’s chief of staff for moral guidance.

But this isn’t an event isolated to an inarticulate former Chicago congressman, though it did spark an overwhelming right wing uproar, perhaps most notably from John McCain’s running mate Sarah Palin.

This trend in modern-day politics, from Harry Reid referencing our “light-skinned” president to Dick Cheney telling Patrick Leahy to, in so many words, take a hike, reveals a certain arrogance all too common in Washington, D.C.

Such criticism must be even-handed, as it often is not. Rush Limbaugh, for example, saw fit to criticize Emanuel’s use of the term “retard,” by referring to various liberals as, you guessed it, “retards.” Unlike in Emanuel’s case, Palin did not rush to correct his vocabulary and, in fact, defended him.

Perhaps the most flooring aspect of this bizarre controversy was Emanuel’s response to the criticism. What better way to solve a problem than to phone in a private apology to the ambassador of Americans with developmental disabilities, Special Olympics CEO Tim Shriver?

Of course, there is no ambassador of the mentally handicapped. And if there were, I’d bet it wouldn’t be Shriver. But such is the mindset of Washington. Offensive gaffs and slurs are a thing of the past with a quick apology to a figure with some semblance of authority.

Words turned pejorative like “retard” and “gay” have become part of a dangerous trend. Their use can be belittling in the smallest of instances, from a walk down the mall to a dinner with friends.

I have trouble believing that Limbaugh, Emanuel and countless others truly grasp that they’re validating the use of these words every time they’re caught in a sound bite or speech or article written about God-knows-what.

But it’s not about Limbaugh, Emanuel or Reid. In the grand scheme of things, what they do and what they say will be nothing short of a blip on the radar.

What it comes down to is that we, the voters, must hold them accountable not only in what they do, but in what they say.