They do it every time — whenever a high profile public figure is caught uttering racist comments, or a whenever a sociopath commits mass murder, the entire right wing media machine immediately starts searching through public records to see if that person ever, in his or her entire life, donated to a Democrat or registered as a Democrat in an election. And if they find what they’re searching for, they immediately start ranting in unison that the person in question is proof that the “real racists” or the “real psycho killers” are actually, yes, liberals.

You can set your watch by this childish behavior. And when Clippers owner Donald Sterling was exposed as a racist, he became the latest example. From National Review right on down to the scummiest wingnut hate blog, they all fell into line and began parroting this nonsense, because someone dug up a handful of contributions to Democratic politicians in the early 1990s.

And as usual, the right wingers have egg on their faces again — because it turns out Donald Sterling is a registered Republican.

The point of making Sterling out to be a “liberal,” of course, is to perform the strange right wing ritual known as “I know you are but what am I?” in retaliation for their hero Cliven Bundy being exposed as a racist. But anyone with more than two brain cells can see the huge difference in these two cases: the right wing turned out en masse to support Cliven Bundy and praise him as a hero of the conservative movement, while no liberal or Democrat has uttered a single word of support for Donald Sterling.

But one thing is guaranteed — the next case of racism or violence that comes up, these deeply dishonest people will just start the same process all over again.