John Leo accuses Washington Post gunsel Dana Milbank of turning one bigot at a Sarah Palin rally into a generalized assumption that the crowd of nearly 5,000 shared his views. I think Leo’s a great columnist, but I think he make one big mistake here: He assumes that Milbank was telling the truth.

As a city editor, I was always suspicious of the “said one bystander” technique, mainly because I had been burned early in my career by a reporter who included a spectacular quote from a “bystander” at a fire scene. After the paper came out (we were an afternoon paper) our photographer, who had been at the fire, read the story and came to me to say the reporter had never spoken with anyone at the fire scene.

Coverage of the same rally by several other newspapers saw no such bigotry in the audience. I suppose Milbank might have just coincidentally stood next to the most reprobate person in a crowd of 5,000, but what are the chances of that? Just count me as suspicious.

ANOTHER POSSIBILITY: There are many reports of organized leftist infiltrators trying to sabotage Repbulican rallies. It’s entirely possible that Milbank was punked by an Obama operative trying to make the Palin crowd look unsavory. If he fell of it, shame on him.