The Democrats have a good thing going. It’s unclear exactly how they arranged it or why it is that no one has really noticed it before and called them out on it. But they are very clever and they deserve full credit for pulling it off. It’s just another piece of evidence that when it comes to hardball politics/media manipulation, there is only one team even playing the game, much less a contest of any sort being waged.

Their gambit? The Democrats have constructed a reality whereby they get to blame Republicans outright for any transgression they commit -- real or contrived -- whether it be some verbal or policy slight against a favored special-interest group, a tax advantage they give to their wealthy donor base, an unfair reduction in rights and privileges to the deserving just for the fun of being mean-spirited, environmentally-damaging political decisions made out of ignorance or uncaring short-sightedness, or a disruptive, counter-productive introduction of religion and morals into the public discussion in a blatant, hypocritical violation of the doctrine of separation of church and state.

The Democrats actually go further than simply tying such actions to Republican politicians. In fact, they routinely tie calamitous events to Republicans in general, office holders and supporters alike, and blame Republicans for intentionally creating the circumstances that enabled the event to transpire in the first place. A perfect recent example of this was a few years ago when Sarah Palin -- a favorite Democratic fall girl -- produced a “map” identifying targeted Democratic Congressional seats, with a crosshair graphic on the seat. Democrats howled that Palin was advocating actual gun violence against those Democratic officeholders and claimed that her actions specifically contributed to gunman Jared Loughner’s actions when he shot AZ congresswoman Gabby Giffords along with several other people. That was ludicrous, since Loughner’s mental illness was well-documented and had nothing to do with Palin’s strategic electoral map. In fact, there’s not any evidence that Loughner even knew who Sarah Palin was.

Yet when it serves their PR purposes, Democratic politicians -- secure in their confidence that the liberal media will back their play every step of the way -- feel free to conflate long-understood clichés and figures of speech with the literal meaning of that phrase when the literal meaning serves their political agenda. “In the crosshairs,” of course, is just an ages-old colloquialism for a matter to which one is turning one’s full attention and effort. You have to be a truly special kind of partisan to think you could convince others otherwise. But to the Democrats’ everlasting credit, they continually put it out there, knowing that the charge on Page One is seen by everyone, but the correction on page 12 four days later goes by virtually unnoticed.

Conversely, when a Democratic politician or a Democratic supporter is unavoidably trapped into acknowledging some inexcusable misconduct, abdication of responsibility, obvious lie, or insulting, insensitive speech, the typical Democratic response (assuming that a liberal media-backed outright denial of reality is not an option) involves some grudging admission of a temporary lapse in their usually impeccable judgement, followed by the inevitable dragging of Republicans along to share their guilt.

Here are some quintessential Democratic responses to flagrant Democratic misstatements and actions:

• Both sides need to tone down the rhetoric.
• There is plenty of blame to go around on both sides.
• This situation requires immediate, focused bi-partisan attention.
• Both sides are guilty of overreaction.
• Both sides need to focus on what’s important and turn down the vitriol.

These kinds of Democratic proclamations are all-to-familiar to anyone paying any semblance of attention to the news. The recent revelation that President Obama knew months before the 2016 election that Russia was attempting to influence the U.S, election but that the Obama administration actively and intentionally decided against taking any action to thwart Russian interference has been greeted by the liberal media with bare-minimal (if any) coverage. When one Democratic lawmaker (Adam Schiff of CA) said, “I think the [Obama] administration needed to call out Russia earlier, needed to act to deter and punish Russia earlier, and that was a very serious mistake,” he was very quick to add, “I have to contest what President Trump is saying, because for Donald Trump who openly egged on the Russians to hack Hillary Clinton's emails and celebrated every release of stolen documents -- to criticize Obama is now a bit like someone knowingly receiving stolen property blaming the police for not stopping the theft."

Perfectly scripted, right from the Democrats’ playbook: If you have to acknowledge an error on your side and there’s no possibility of denial, then bring the Republicans along for the ride on the Blame Train and imply that they’re at least as much at fault, even if you have to contort the facts in order to do so.

Schiff’s statement of Trump having “openly egged on the Russians” during the election campaign is an outright falsehood. As we said, “Charge on Page One. Correction to follow four days later -- maybe -- on page 12.” That’s no small semantic error: Trump may have cheered on Julian Assange’s announcements of more damaging DNC e-mails to come, but he didn’t know, nor did anyone else at the time, that the Russians may have been behind them (It’s still in question, an unsettled matter.) Replacing Assange with the Russians is willfully disingenuous on Schiff’s part. Skillful also, knowing he won’t be called out on it in a major public forum.

Another current example is CBS Evening News’ correspondent Scott Pelley’s astonishing utterance that the shooting of Republican congressman Steve Scalise by Bernie Sanders supporter James Hodgkinson may have been  “to some degree self-inflicted.” In the Democrats’ world, no bad action can possibly be completely the fault of a Democratic politician or avowed Democratic supporter, lest that action cast the Democrats or their positions in a bad light. On the contrary, when a Democrat acts badly, it must be at least partially the Republicans’ fault, as this example proves once again.

It’s a good system that the Democrats have worked out for themselves: When they’re right, they take all the credit. When they’re wrong, they only get half -- maybe less -- of the blame. We’d all like to live in that world.