[Mamzelle]

I think this happens a lot more often among the "do gooders" than we realize, and conservatives can't be immune (being human beings of the same culture) though I haven't heard of such incidents on the other side of the aisle. Any racial/ethnic incident of this sort ought to be under high suspicion of Munchauesen's-style hoaxing and tampering.

Scratch any loudly liberal person and you're going to find what I call a "Harper Lee Complex." They all wish they'd written the ultimate Suffering of the Downtrodden With Noble Enlightened Rescuer Novel--"To Kill a Mockingbird", and they all want to play Atticus Finch, the faultless lawyer. I happen to regard this book and movie as hyper-sentimentalized, but dare to criticize it, and see whatcha get! In minutes, you'll be called a racist. Tried this just the other day on FR, sure enough, a Harper Lee wannabe showed up to do exactly that. I even told her exactly what I was doing, but she was too high on her own vanity to pay attention.

And that's what we've got here with this character.

Trouble is with the Harper Lee's of the world--there's not enough Downtrodden to go around (and certainly not from reliably safe distances). They've got to invent it in order to play Heroine.

Volunteer fire departments also have to keep an eye out for variations on the Munchausens--firebugs who set fires so that they can be the hero who puts them out.

[Bonaparte]

I'm no expert in psychiatry, far from it. But my understanding is that Munchausen's involves feigning physical or mental illness in order to obtain the sympathy and attention of others. Dunn has not done this. I don't think it applies to the sort of set-up Dunn devised, although I'll allow that it's analogous. Her attorneys are certain to find shrinks who will assign an appropriate and impressive sounding diagnosis that will seem to fit. If she's charged with federal felonies and the jurors are in sympathy with her politics, it seems likely to me that they will spare her the punishment she deserves.

[the OlLine Rebel]

Trouble is with the Harper Lee's of the world--there's not enough Downtrodden to go around (and certainly not from reliably safe distances). They've got to invent it in order to play Heroine.
Volunteer fire departments also have to keep an eye out for variations on the Munchausens--firebugs who set fires so that they can be the hero who puts them out.

Exactly. We don't have enough to be worried about here. In this case I think it's mostly they just are "disappointed" (in a sick & twisted way) there isn't that much racism around, so they can go on saying how terrible America is (or white people specifically, or something) by making up some event.
I think this is the spoiled (rotten) syndrome our society has. It's almost like there's a gene in humans to need worries - and it makes up the difference if there aren't any real worries. Hence, even talk of food bans and taxes, etc. These are NOT serious issues, but we're making them up to be. Cuz we don't have many serious issues and what we do, just doesn't happen much!