The co-hosts of The Five seemed to be competing today for who could exploit the Paris terrorism to smear liberals in the most hideous way. It was a tough competition but I think Eric Bolling won when he accused “Je suis Charlie” protesters of being “more Al Qaeda than you are Charlie.”

Greg Gutfeld and Kimberly Guilfoyle were close runners-up, however. Bob Beckel should get the booby prize for his useless bluster that made no serious effort to counter the poison being spewed and promoted under his nose.

The segment was clearly designed not to discuss the latest dramatic events in the Charlie Hebdo attack (the killings of the suspects earlier today) but to use those events to go after the media, academia and liberals.

It started with co-host Greg Gutfeld attacking liberal college students for opposing conservative speakers like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Condoleezza Rice. As if that is anywhere near the equivalent of what happened to Charlie Hebdo.

But, clearly, Gutfeld wants you to think so: “One aids terror by blocking speech through the fabrication of offense,” he said.

Next smear target: the media. Gutfeld complained that CNN’s Christiane Amanpour called terrorists ‘activists.’” He played a clip for extra hate-mongering points. And for even more hate, he played clips of other journalists expressing concern about intolerance in reaction to the attack.

If anybody noticed the irony of smearing other journalists over their speech while pretending to stand for Charlie Hebdo's rights, he or she kept quiet.

And by the way? While Gutfeld talked tough about the need for “eradication” of Al Qaeda, he didn’t say a word about putting his own fanny on the line. Heck, he didn’t even hold up any of the cartoons he so valiantly used as a club against lefties. Not on his Twitter feed or his website, either.

Instead, Gutfeld came up with this nauseating accusation that the left “drools with envy” at the Charlie Hebdo slaughter.

Finally, where did this cult learn to punish language? From the Koran? From Al Qaeda? How about Harvard? And our modern cult of hate speech activists who see language as violence, creating speech codes with penalties? Seeing ‘activists’ silence critics so easily must make them drool with envy.

Putin-admiring Kimberly Guilfoyle got in her own “liberals are terrorists” dig:

We are the biggest enemy: the liberal apologists that are more concerned than offending terrorists than they are in eradicating them. That makes us weak and therefore makes them strong. That is a big problem that has to be addressed.

Eric Bolling picked up the ball.

The people who – at Brandeis University, Rutgers, Harvard, Berkeley – this year, alone – who’ve killed free speech who’ve actually had people disinvited to speeches they were going to make on their campuses, align more closely with the terrorists in Paris than they do with the people from Charlie Hebdo.

…These same people want to go ahead and wear these pins and tweet “Je suis Charlie.” I am Charlie. No you’re not. You’re not, you’re the opposite. You’re more Al Qaeda than you are Charlie.

Beckel was silent. It was Dana Perino who spoke up. “You didn’t really mean that, right?” She said later, “I’m just trying to prevent backlash.”

So who do you think these “patriots” hate more, Al Qaeda or their fellow Americans?

Watch it below, if you can stand it.  From today’s The Five.