I haven’t blogged about this story at all in the past.  It has been widely cov­ered by other con­ser­v­a­tive blog­gers, namely Michelle Malkin, Robert Stacy McCain, and Dan Riehl.  It has also cre­ated a firestorm of lib­eral vs. con­ser­v­a­tive com­ments and posts:  Sites like the Daily Kos, Huff­in­g­ton Post, and The Daily Dish took every oppor­tu­nity to blame this on extreme right-wingers, anti-government folks, and even some talk show hosts and blog­gers (i.e., Glenn Beck and MM).  Now, whether they will ever admit it or not, these blog­gers are com­ing out with egg on their faces.

With that said, the Ken­tucky State Police inves­ti­ga­tion — aided by the FBI — has con­cluded the cen­sus worker, Bill Spark­man, staged his own death to appear like a homi­cide — one that would lead inves­ti­ga­tors and reporters to believe it was a mur­derer with strong anti-federal-government lean­ings.  Turns out it was the “vic­tim” who was the per­pe­tra­tor of the crime.  Full details are here.

Michelle Malkin in par­tic­u­lar took some pretty nasty hits dur­ing all of this, espe­cially from Andrew Sul­li­van.  Her cov­er­age is here and here.  Michelle truly is the shin­ing exam­ple of a pro­fes­sional in her field.  Mr. Stacy McCain, from what I’ve read, actu­ally did some report­ing from Ken­tucky and was able to get more of the story.  He’s even com­piled a list of those who blamed the con­ser­v­a­tives for Sparkman’s death.

Because of this firestorm, I have truly learned which sites are best avoided.  Of course, the Daily Kos and HuffPo are to be avoided with­out ques­tion.  But Lit­tle Green Foot­balls and the Daily Dish are also on the black­list.  These are sites which once touted they were con­ser­v­a­tive, but have for a while now been wolves in sheep’s cloth­ing.  So if you go to those sites, tread very care­fully and do your research.