JESSE WALKER ON BLOOD LIBELS. “The effect isn’t to make right-wing terror attacks less likely. It’s to make it easier to smear nonviolent, noncriminal figures on the right, just as the most substantial effect of a red scare was to make it easier to smear nonviolent, noncriminal figures on the left. The fact that communist spies really existed didn’t justify Joseph McCarthy’s antics, and the fact that armed extremists really exist doesn’t justify the Department of Homeland Security’s report.” If the Holocaust Museum shooting had been by a Muslim, we’d be hearing more calls for nuance. And if the shooter had been gay, the usual suspects would be blaming Carrie Prejean. . . .