SOMEONE? ANYONE? "To spare you the trouble of reading comments, I am not implying that the American left as a whole will think this way. Most won't. But someone will."

What was Tacitus' subject on this occasion? That's not important. (You can find out here, though.) I grabbed the quote because it's the apotheosis of a pervasive conservative schtick these days, which works like this:

1. Find an intemperate statement from "someone" in the general vicinity of the Left.
   
2. Lay it at the doorstep of your opponents, ring the doorbell, and run like hell.

"But someone will." There's a hopeful tone to it that I especially like. There'll be another such nut somewhere we can link this to -- then, it's proof of a conspiracy!

At least Tacitus -- an honorable man -- doesn't appear to be misrepresenting his source material. Less honorable examples are abundant at Andrew Sullivan's site. Here's one utilizing right-wing whipping boy Ted Rall.

Rall's Veteran's Day column this year portrayed the POV of an Iraqi insurgent, leading many allegedly intelligent commentators to believe, or pretend to believe, that Rall was himself calling for the deaths of American servicemen.

Finding Rall guilty of treason, Sullivan dragged him around the liberal side of town, looking for co-conspirators. "After 9/11, I was roundly criticized for daring to suggest that there were some people in America who wanted the terrorists to win," says Sullivan, but he contends that Rall's piece proves that "there is a virulent strain of anti-Americanism in this country... That's where parts of the left have now come to reside. It's as sad as it is sickening."

Sullivan doesn't bother to tell us which "parts of the left" he's talking about; it's what one might call an open warrant -- fill in the names as needed. "Someone" will fit the bill.