Call it a case of what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

   Or as the noted 16th Century political analyst, W. Shakespeare, once noted, what's "fowl is fair." 

    We’re referring to the Democrats’ recent slam at Republican Rep. Roy Blunt for his “silence" on which Republican he backs in New York’s special election Tuesday for the 23rd District seat in the House.

   That’s the race which has the political world all atwitter – figuratively and most likely literally. A Republican from the party’s conservative wing is running even with the Democratic candidate and has since forced the GOP establishment-backed contender out of the race.

    Blunt, who is seeking his party’s nomination to the Senate from Missouri next year, now backs the conservative candidate who remains in the race, Doug Hoffman, according to his campaign spokesman, Rich Chrismer.

     But before he did that,  Eric Schultz, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said Friday that Blunt should tell “Missouri Republican primary voters who he supports.”

   It wasn’t too many weeks ago that Democrats were on the receiving end of the same kind of attack.

   Republicans were criticizing their likely candidate in the 2010 Senate contest – Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan – for her “silence” on health care and a whole bunch of other issues.

    “Carnahan owes the people she is hoping to represent an immediate explanation on her stance regarding health care,” Amber Wilkerson Marchand of the National Republican Senatorial Committee said in September.

    Today, she said that Blunt staying out of the New York contest was not comparable to Carnahan refusing to spell out her views:

   "Voters are left to assume that Carnahan would simply serve as a rubber stamp for President Obama, (House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi, and (Senate Majority leader) Harry Reid’s liberal agenda.” 

    Here's what Schultz said today: "As  a Washington insider and face of the Republican establishment, it was curious that Roy Blunt stayed silent when all of his colleagues were backing one candidate over the other. Roy Blunt showed us he's no profile in courage."

   Game on.