CHARLESTON 2015: WE HAVE A WINNER.

Feeling bad about what happened in Charleston yesterday? Spare some sympathy for Mona Charen at National Review:

The heinousness of a person who can sit for an hour studying the Bible and then open fire is unfathomable. Even more depressing, if that’s possible, is my suspicion – and I truly hope I’m wrong – that this event will play a role in the 2016 presidential campaign.

This was treated with appropriate contempt on Twitter and elsewhere, and Charen roared back:

Some people, determined to see bad faith in those with whom they disagree, are seizing upon my post earlier today...

("Seizing upon" means "accurately quoting," in this case.)

Am I someone who’s more upset about politics than murder, hatred, and death? Um, no.

She said "um," that settles it. Wait, Charen has more:

I should have put it more precisely. The feelings of grief, rage, and horror at an atrocity such as we saw last night should be taken for granted among all civilized people. One doesn’t feel “depressed” about an event like a mass shooting. One does get depressed at the cynical uses to which such outrages have lately been put.

She didn't mean what she said, and we're monsters to think she did. Context doesn't redeem her, though. I've read quite a bit of Mona Charen's work. Here she's beating up on unwed mothers ("Of course some women want babies the way others crave shoes..."). Here she's tying thwarted attacks on the White House to Obama's "divisiveness"  ("his death at the hands of an assassin could still well be more pain and stress than our republic could stand. It’s a good bet that close to 100 percent of blacks and a good percentage of others would believe that a demonic conspiracy brought him down..."). Here's "Democrats do tend to be less patriotic than Republicans. There, I've said it out loud." I could go on, but if there's one thing covering these guys for years has taught me, it's that with someone like Charen there's no reason to interpret anything she says charitably.

Nine dead and she and the Republican Party are the victims. Sheesh.

UPDATE. Now Ian Tuttle is over there defending the Confederate flag:

But with respect to Ms. Kendall, this hateful man’s use of a slogan is no proof that the slogan itself is hateful. Elected leaders make this distinction constantly when it comes to Islamic terrorism, after all: The teachings of Muhammad, the Koran, the black flag with the Shahada (the flag of ISIS) — they have been “hijacked” and “perverted.” Why hasn’t Dylann Roof merely “hijacked” or “perverted” the main symbol of the Confederacy?

Interesting approach -- if you think Islam is different from Islamic terror, you must accept that those who fly the Battle Flag aren't necessarily endorsing the Peculiar Institution. But apparently it doesn't work the other way around: Here's Tuttle last year with a post called "No, Pointing Out Muslims Have Been Beheading People for Centuries Isn’t Islamophobic":

The larger question is whether Islam qua Islam sanctions beheading — or if jihadists pervert a religion that, in its orthodox form, is peaceful.

That debate can be left to religious scholars. What is evident is that, as Tantaros observes, the masked men in our age who delight in chopping off heads are typically Muslim, and they believe that they have the sanction of their religion. Furthermore, that religious fervor has made them less than amenable to reasoned, dispassionate negotiation.

If you tried this approach on the Charleston killer -- "the question is whether racism is a perversion of the neo-Confederate cause," for example, "but what is evident is that racists are typically neo-Confederates..." I expect Tuttle would be grievously offended on behalf of Nathan Bedford Forrest and the rest of his heroes.