The June 15th column by Eugene Robinson is a fairly typical example of how some journalists manipulate an isolated incident to implicate wider and unrelated actions.

The episode that inspired the column: An 88 year-old deranged man, whose mental problems were so serious that his own family had rejected him, was prevented from entering the Holocaust Memorial Museum because he was carrying a rifle. In the ensuing skirmish, the security guard, who happened to be black, was killed and the crazed attacker was wounded. This unbalanced man, with a decades-old history of irrational anti-Semitism, acted alone.

With only these basic facts, Robinson tries to demean conservative commentators (including Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity) who criticized a Department of Homeland Security memo predicting increased threats from "right-wing extremist groups." Robinson ignores the facts that the attacker's anti-Semitism existed decades before Barack Obama was even heard of, that he acted alone and was not a member of any group. Robinson, of course, implies some kind of racial motive to the killing of the security guard, whose race was incidental to the fact that he was the person guarding the entrance.

As we would have expected, Robinson refers to the Southern Poverty Law Center's claim that hate groups have increased more than 50% since 2000. The truth of the matter is that 'actual' hate groups have radically decreased over the past several years. The SPLC's claim of an increase results from it's redefining what constitutes a hate group. Its new definition includes opposition to or criticism of such things as abortion, same-sex marriage, illegal immigration and racial preferences. The Left may frown on those who oppose granting preferences to select groups only, but such opinions cannot be called hate.

Finally, Robinson gets so carried away with his interpretations of the mindset of this lone gunman that he even tries to relate it to opposition to Judge Sonia Sotomayor. We can admire Robinson's wild creativity, but let's hope no one takes his conclusions seriously.