The passion of Sarah

It took political dog whistle Governor Sarah Palin just a few days to come up with a response to the Tucson die-in. A measured, professional response. That just happens to use incredibly inflammatory terminology that doesn't remotely apply. I'm sure it was completely by accident, something that was well-scripted in the heat of the moment.

She's a bit piqued because on-line and in the press she's been tainted with the unholy brush of collective blame. As it turns out the shooter isn't a resident of Beckistan but rather a looney's loony who, among other things, denies the reality of the space program and makes the readers of conspiracy web sites laugh. She's absolutely correct—collective blame is bad. Unless of course you're talking about Muslims. Then it's A-OK.

But Sarah isn't the only unfortunate caught in the web of false accusation. Consider the case of the poor, frightened co-founder of the Tucson chapter of the Tea Party:

...Trent Humphries says there is another innocent victim left by Jared Lee Loughner's killing of six people and wounding of 14 others in his assassination attempt against Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. It is his Tea Party movement and, more particularly, his family. The killings, he says, are evolving into a conspiracy to destroy his organisation and silence criticism of the government.

Funny thing about dog whistles. They work even if your dog is tone deaf. And once again we see that assassins always have three names.

Be sure to click on all the pictures.