So one of the e-mailers who used a four-letter word beginning with F to curse me out for making a joke about the obscurity of accused shoplifter and ex-White House aide Claude Allen has written me back:

The reaction you experienced, John, was to your initial characterization
of the event–a typical and crude Republican trope used when one of
their own is caught in an undeniable shame–to find some way to turn it
on those who recognize the crime, rather than the one who has committed
it.
You’ve shown some intellectual advancement from your usual slavish and
dependent partisanship, though–recognizing what someone like you would
have done in response to a Democrat found in such circumstances–but, as
an old dog who has performed the same act for years, can’t resist the
same old trick–although this time you have to resort to fantasy to
finally turn it back to the more comfortable action of chastizing the
’Bush Haters.’
John. Someone–a person nominated by your President and Mine as a
Federal Judge–was caught as a recidivist thief. This should worry you
enough to move away from your comfort zone, as habitual and reinforced
as it may be, and as frightening to do otherwise for a moment–and
THINK.
You won’t. And that’s a shame.

Okay, let’s examine this. What exactly is the arrest of a single guy working at the White House who stole stuff from Target supposed to make me think about? That conservatives and Republicans can do things like steal? No kidding. I knew that from the guy who stole $200 from my dorm room in 1979 who went on to be a big-time GOP donor.

As for a “typical and crude trope” covering up for Republicans, trust me, buddy — do a Google search on my name and Jack Abramoff to see what kind of things I’ve said. Partisan Democrats and Leftists have spent years now trying to make the argument that the pecadillos of people on the Right (like the gay hustler who, gasp, had a White House press pass) constitute a wholesale discrediting of the conservative philosophy. You know what that is? It’s profoundly, unimaginably, and indefensibly stupid.