Let’s set the scene. The president and the Democrats are losing support left and right on their healthcare scheme. They tried to rush it through Congress but couldn’t. Details emerged (not coincidentally with flagging support) and We the People began to ask questions. Hard questions.

At first the “spinclination” was to pretend that the questions and questioners didn’t exist, as that would take away from the All Important Message that everyone wants healthcare reform and we can’t afford to wait another minute. Once the protests and rallies became too insistent to pretend nonexistent, however, spinclination took a bifurcated path: the protesters (1) aren’t real constituents a congressman would ignore at his own electoral peril but instead were fake demonstrators bought and bused in by Big Pharma and (2) are crazy, dangerous mobs of thugs who wave swastikas, act like Nazis, are un-American, and are reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan.

Surprisingly, that tack hasn’t worked, there being distinct difference between senior citizens loudly demanding their congressmen to answer their questions (of which there is evidence aplenty) and them getting actually violent (perhaps said thugs are also “Hands Off My Cowardly Congressman” types, too?), and more to the point, there being a distinct lack of photographic evidence of the swastikas.

Until yesterday, that is:

sign

A swastika was found Tuesday painted on a sign outside Rep. David Scott’s district office, an act the Georgia Democrat said reflects an increasingly hateful and racist debate over health care and should serve as a reminder for people to tone down their rhetoric.

Scott’s staff arrived at his Smyrna, Ga., office Tuesday morning to find the Nazi graffiti emblazoned on a sign bearing the lawmaker’s name. The vandalism occurred roughly a week after Scott was involved in a contentious argument over health care at a community meeting.

Scott, who is black, said he also has received mail in recent days that used N-word references to him, and that characterized President Barack Obama as a Marxist.

“We have got to make sure that the symbol of the swastika does not win, that the racial hatred that’s bubbling up does not win this debate,” Scott said in a telephone interview. “There’s so much hatred out there for President (Barack) Obama.” …

Suddenly, out of the blue, the desperate smear has become an unquestionable monument to everything the Democrat message machine has been saying. What a lucky break for the cause, no?

Well, I’m not buying it. It’s entirely too politically convenient, just as the faked pro-Obama assault was last year, of which I was skeptical from the get-go. It is too reminiscent of other faked political hate crimes, and too far removed from the character of the demonstrators I met on the Hands Off My Healthcare tour last week, for me to think otherwise.

Yes, it’s possible that some kook snuck out in the middle of the night to paint a swastika on the black Congressman’s sign (but even so, that wouldn’t be reflective of the character of the other opponents of the healthcare takeover), but as I see it, the likelihood is so much higher of this being a hoax.