The most relevant question to ask when public figures engage in noxious behavior is whether the behavior was caused by ignorance or mendacity; whether they acted as they did because they didn't know better, or behaved shamelessly with full knowledge.

In the case of Attorney General Pam Bondi, with respect to her comments in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination, the preponderance of evidence suggests the latter.

More precisely, it is difficult to believe that anything other than mendacity, along with disregard for the Constitution and her constitutionally conferred responsibilities, motivated Bondi to say, "We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech."

It is highly unlikely that someone could graduate from law school, serve for eight years as attorney general of one of our largest states and now occupy the position of United States Attorney General, the highest law enforcement official in the land and head of the Department of Justice, and not have learned that the invariably and often purposely ill-defined thing called "hate speech" is constitutionally protected speech, at least in the sense of being protected from punishment by the likes of her and her boss.

In my ancient journalism school days, there likely wasn't a single classmate who hadn't learned this by the end of junior year,........

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