There are double standards. I didn’t find Palin’s statement confusing. As for limits to “freedom of speech” well there are limits. Freedom of speech has not until modern times become the license to put forth into the public space every form of vulgarity and obscenity. That said we are faced with an aggressive liberal effort to limit political speech labeled as hate speech and such which is very dangerous. However I don’t believe freedom of speech extends to a private funeral and I do believe that individuals should be able to designate funerals as private closed events with barriers setup to make sure that attendees are not faced with people like the Westboro people. I feel the same about protests at houses of political figures. You may have a right to speech but you don’t have the right to block public streets or harass people especially in a private venue though the left after Prop 8 passage did all those things.
I think conservatives have made a mistake by not sticking to the traditional definition of freedom of speech and instead falling for what is essentially a liberal bastardization of what was essentially protection for political speech as a source of dissemination of information which of course the left are keen to limit where as they are willing to have whatever range of nastiness in the public space provided you are not mean to their pet nasties.
Obviously someone did or palin would not have come out to "clearify" what she meant. That's the point.
Just for the record, the Westboro people were in an area cordoned off by the police, 1000 feet from the church. The dead soldier's father testified that he only glimpsed the tops of their signs, couldn't read them, only learned what they said later when he watched it on the news and that most of the emotional distress that he claimed was only after he went to Westboro's website and read what was there.