While we are on the subject of things that get written for reasons other than the relationship they bear to the truth, those of us who remember the successful effort to demonize Republican success in 1994-95 as “a temper tantrum,” “angry white men,” etc. (all the way to Bill Clinton essentially blaming the Oklahoma City bombing on Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh) see the same campaign ramping up again with media claims that Republican voters are dangerously unhinged and the only cure is to stop saying bad things about Barack Obama’s record.

If you have been following this “story,” it’s helpful to have a few reminders that a lot of these stories are based on misreporting, and that there are plenty of examples of this and worse on the Left side (really, after the last 8 years of Bush hatred and the outpouring of venom and slime directed at Sarah Palin, is “which side has more unhinged angry people doing and saying vile things” really the hill the Left wants to die on?).

There are, in fact, angry, crazy people on both sides, and this is in fact the point in the electoral calendar when a lot of people’s emotions are running high. The decision to make a media narrative out of one side at precisely the moment when Obama badly wants to delegitimize any criticism of his record and his past…well, it’s just a story someone wants you to hear.