Seven-term Sheriff Clarence Dupnik attributed the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords to fierce political rhetoric and added that “The anger, the hatred, the bogotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous.”

No one knows for certain what Jared L. Loughner was thinking. We know that he researched political assassinations and that he spouted a lot of right wing nonsense about the currency. But he said other things that were simply incomprehensible.

The fall-out from the Supreme Court’s recent action in the case of Enron CEO Jeff Skilling has brought a famous political prosecution back into the headlines.

The conviction of former Alabama Governor Donald E. Siegelman for bribery in 2006 had become a cause célèbre in the United States and internationally, with one hundred and four current and past states attorneys general going on record that Siegelman should have a new trial. One of these former AGs was Grant Woods, national co-chairman of the McCain presidential campaign.

Siegelman’s case was the most famous of the Bush Justice Department’s political prosecutions, but the unsuccessful effort to jail Cyril Wecht was probably the most malignant of them. It illustrates the kind of political prosecution that has become common in the Republican South. These prosecutions hinge of a very vague and short piece of legislation—the “honest services” and mail fraud statute-- that imposes stiff penalties upon officials and others accused of not providing citizens with “honest services” due to corruption.

The Siegelman Case in Brief

On August 4, 2010, the Goodtime Amusements Company took down a game that allowed patrons to spend a dollar to take six shots at a figure who very much resembled President Barack Obama. The African American figure held a "Health Bill," and his belt buckle was adorned with what appeared to be the presidential seal. Targets were on the forehead and heart, but there was no target on the health bill.

The company had been using this "Alien Attack" game for six or seven weeks. It was so named because the figure had two alien antennas on his head.

The owner of the company received one complaint about the game when it was first used. He withdrew the game on August 4 after another complaint was lodged and the Secret Service looked into it. It appears that he first defended the game on the grounds of "free speech."

The game was last used at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in the Borough of Roseto, Pennsylvania. The Big Time Carnaval was to raise money for the parish school. According to a spokesman for the Diocese of Allentown, no one associated with the parish had any idea the offensive game was part of Goodtime's offerings.

Many factors are involved in our difficulty in understanding today’s strange politics, but two stand out. One is saliency of irrational factors and clever manipulation of people’s fears and prejudices, but that is the subject for another time. The second is that one of the political parties no longer fits the mold of a traditional American political party, but few analysts seem to recognize this.