Clinton Did It First

For any high-minded liberals who want to excoriate Republicans for even alluding to matters like unabashed and unapologetic love of country, it might be worth keeping in mind that it wasn't the GOP that came up with the idea of branding Barack Obama as somehow "un-American." According to newly-revealed leaked memoes, Hillary Clinton's campaign wanted to criticize Barack for lacking American values.

This is an important point that will almost certainly go down the memory hole unless plenty of people make note of it now. That's because -- if Barack loses -- the Democrats will seek to "wave the bloody shirt" over his defeat, in an effort to convince their constituents that somehow illegitimate, vaguely racist arguments from evil Republicans were responsible. (Just as, in their revisionist historical formulation, butterfly ballots, Katherine Harris, and the "Republican Supreme Court" were the triumvirate of evil circa 2000.)

So remember: Strategies Democrats would denounce as most objectionable came first from . . . Democrats.