I’d like to encourage you to take a good look at the picture of Ashley Todd, who didn’t get mugged yesterday. See how the ‘B’ is backwards, sort of like she made it herself, in the mirror? I’m not really here to talk about that, though. Nor about Fox’s prediction that this would sink the race for McCain. There isn’t a lot of insight to add–McCain staffer makes a bad decision, makes headlines, and then admits that she was race-baiting in Pennsylvania.

I’d like to talk about some of the conservative reactions, as collected by Wonkette. It’s not every day the conservatives are dealt a blow like this. Colin Powell elicited a predictable reaction. Most endorsements do. But Ashley Todd? How do they feel about someone taking a risk for their campaign and failing?

If the collection of comments are any indication, the reaction appears to be partly what you would expect–lamenting that someone would risk their campaign’s good standing like that. But it also consists of people claiming she is probably a liberal plant: “Exactly something an idiotic liberal coward would do. bet if you look close enough she’s an obama supporter.” Apparently conservatism is incapable of doing wrong–it is all caused by acts of liberal sabotage.

In all fairness, I do not think conservatives on the whole will be accusing her of deliberate sabotage. Anger at the media makes more sense, for breaking the story in the first place when the police were clearly not convinced of the story. It may not be reasonable to assume the media won’t break a story like this–but it certainly fits in with the conservative metanarrative.

But the fact remains–there are those who are so devout in their support of the cause they believe anyone who does damage to it is a saboteur rather than merely someone who makes bad decisions. Sometimes unquestioning devotion to your cause is a bad thing.