fuming, seething, spitting nails, etc.

Copied and pasted from the Facebooks, mainly.

So look. I know we're meant to avoid ascribing to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity, so it would be charitable (to say the least) to conclude that Sarah Palin and/or her speechwriters and other handlers had heard the phrase "blood libel" at some point and drawn a couple of conclusions about what it seems to mean, and used it in the present context of how it really is not quite appropriate to blame her and her gunsight-map thing for Jared Lee Loughner's shooting rampage in Tucscon, and the fact that nobody working for her was in a position to say (or maybe in a position to reach her with) "Um, Governor, let's have a careful think about whether these are the specific words you really want to use" was just bad staff work.

I can't do it. I think that woman is much more shrewd than that, and ignorant about a lot of things but not about right-wing Christian Dominionism - and the particular brand of Zionism that comes from the Christian Right makes my skin crawl, by the way, because it has nothing to do with sympathy toward the Jews in any way, shape, or form - and I think she did choose her words carefully and deliberately, knowing full well that she was elevating the importance of what she believes is happening to her, or trivializing what "blood libel" actually refers to, or, hey, why not both.

Side note. I had a history teacher in high school who said on numerous occasions that I can remember that what happened to the indigenous peoples of North America when the Europeans got here was "the true holocaust". And we know what he meant, which was that as a percentage of the population exterminated by violence and disease, the genocide of the Native Americans by and because of white Europeans was much more nearly complete (if you'll accept that, semantically [g] - my mother doesn't like comparing absolutes, but she's not here, is she) than the genocide of the Jews by the Nazis. Which is true. But saying "that was the true holocaust" kind of comes right out and suggests that the one we've known all this time as the Holocaust was some sort of mere aspirant, which is kind of an offensive thing for a gentile to say, especially to a roomful of teenagers. And (speaking of semantics and dragging in etymology), that's aside from the fact that the North American version didn't involve fire, certainly not the way the European one did, so you'll have to call it holo-[something else], Dr. S, thanks.

So back to the point, which is that this indefinite article the present right wing is using is kind of precious and disingenuous, because there's generally just the one blood libel, and calling Sarah Palin out for an ill-judged bit of graphic design isn't it.

(PS: Scalzi has a nice smack-down. Thanks to Shannon for pointing me at it.)