'Make them disappear'

Len at Blogesque had a noteworthy post the other week about a bizarre incident in Fairfield, Ohio, in which a car belonging to the mother of a soldier recently killed in the Iraq war was set on fire by vandals who lit 20 small American flags, gathered from the lawn in front of their house, under it.

Predictably, the right was all afroth over the case, assuming the fires had been set by America-hating libruls, and even suggesting that it represented a "hate crime." Er, not quite.

But, as usual, the Free Republic was the forum where the froth rose to fresh heights. The vandalism was variously ascribed to "anti-qar 'PEACE' people" [sic], "liberal losers trying to make a statement," "Democrat, Liberal Sh*t Eaters," "the pot-smoking, Commie Left," and "the socialist culture as professed by the anti-American-secular-left-wing." One poster finally cut loose with what everyone seemed to be thinking:

Actually, I think lynching should be brought back. And now I'm not being sarcastic. I hope I don't get in trouble for writing this. But I think people who do things like this should just go away, if you know what I mean? Find them and make them disappear.

No one contradicted him.

Then it turned out that a couple of local teenagers were charged with the crime: ages 15 and 13. There's no evidence at all that it was a political act; as far as anyone can tell, they just wanted to set something on fire and the flags were handy as a firestarter.

Hard to tell if the Freepers still want to lynch them; there hasn't been any further commentary from the right.

Update: Seems the mental wizards at Wizbang leapt to the same conclusion, naming their link to the original story, "Leftist Vandals Attack Family Of Slain Soldier." And of course, they haven't bothered to correct it. Standard MO for that crowd. Hat tip to s9 in comments.