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Enough of this childish behavior.

What childish behavior? There are such things as trolls, and we tend to flag posters as possible trolls when they say things that are consistent with standard lib talking points. Yes, it can be an Alinskyism to falsely target someone as a troll. But it can also be a valid "immune system" response, if you will pardon the analogy. It really has to be looked at case by case.

In this particular situation, I have seen two behaviors before that I am seeing here:

1. During the Palin near-candidacy, we routinely had some posters deriding Palin supporters as Palin worshippers. This as it turns out was shared by both regulars we can probably trust as non-trolls, but with some others who basically came for the Palin wars and left when they were over. In any event, it was an invalid attack by willful exaggeration, an attempt to invalidate a position by falsely stretching thoughtful support into mindless idolatry. It was designed to act as a conversation stopper, and it was effective.

2. Entirely without basis, Palin's internal motivations were constantly derided as revolving around her need to make money, to sell her persona for profit, thereby discrediting the sincerity or intellectual merit of anything she had to say. The objective, in my estimation, was to separate her from her audience, to deliberately diminish her influence, but with no basis in fact.

So now we have another major influencer of popular thought, Rush, being derided in the same way. We know the Obama administration has an interest in diminishing his influence, and when we see behavior designed to produce that effect, it is reasonable to at least ask whether it is just a random event, or whether it is purposeful.

My own philosophy, which I think was not always in place, is to treat everyone more or less alike, whether I suspect trollery or not. The reasons are threefold. First, as you have rightly pointed out, it is possible for a real troll to accuse a non-troll of being a troll, again for the purpose of discrediting someone who could influence thought in an "undesirable" way.

Second, if someone is using an "attack the messenger" strategy, per Alinsky, that tells me they don't have a substantive basis for the conclusion they are trying to extract. So troll or not, they can be gamed into unflattering self-exposure all day, and the more they fumble about without offering a meaningful response, the worse their position gets. And that's fine with me. So in that sense it doesn't matter if they're a troll or not. And if it doesn't matter, why accuse them of it? But I will call them on a lack of substance, or the use of Alinsky tactics, or whatever can be discerned from the actual facts. That's all I'm interested in.

But third, and most importantly, trolls are real people too. Someone who actually is a troll has much deeper problems than trying to sabotage legitimate political discussion. That level of duplicity and deception is corrosive to a man or woman's very soul. They are much worse off for being a troll that we are for hosting them. They really have my pity. So why should I pick on them for that, especially when I can't be sure? It just makes no sense.