In a jaw-dropping development yesterday, Tim Profitt, the volunteer goon for the Rand Paul U.S. Senate campaign in Kentucky who was filmed stomping on the head of a Moveon.org activist outside a debate venue, has suggested that it was his victim who should apologize:

“I don’t think it’s that big of a deal,” Profitt said. And when asked if he would apologize to Valle. “I would like for her to apologize to me to be honest with you.”

Republicans like Profitt like to talk about personal responsibility and accountability — but, to their way of thinking, accountability only applies to Democrats. When they do something that is demonstrably wrong, they invariably blame someone, anyone, else.

For example, in Profitt’s first media statement yesterday, he offered a cleverly worded non-apology that shifted blame to his victim and cast himself as merely a concerned bystander trying to protect a candidate from a potential assailant:

“I’m sorry that it came to that, and I apologize if it appeared overly forceful, but I was concerned about Rand’s safety,” Profitt said.

While it’s true that Rand Paul, 47, is small and frail, in the video, Lauren Valle, the 23-year-old-activist, also appears to be of small or medium build, not a hulking, threatening figure. And she was carrying a sign, not a weapon.

Profitt also allegedly claimed that the WDRB videographer’s camera angle made the scuffle appear to be worse than it was.

Besides his victim and the videographer, who else deserved blame, according to Profitt? The police:

Profitt said the fight never would have occurred if police officers had intervened earlier. “A friend of mine went up to three policeman before Rand got there, and told them about the girl who was standing there with that wig on and that she was getting ready to do something,” Profitt said. “The policemen looked at him and said that’s not our job.”

In an interview with local media later in the day, Profitt also put the blame on his own aching back:

“I put my foot on her, and I did push her down at the very end, and I told her to stay down,” Proffitt said, “I actually put my foot on her to… I couldn’t bend over because I have issues with my back.”

If only he hadn’t been suffering from back pain, sez Tim Profitt, he could have helped the goon in the plaid shirt (said to be a gun nut named Mike Pezzano) wrestle Valle to the ground. And then what? Hog tie her? Handcuff her?

Profitt then doubled down on blaming the police:

“Well I’ll just say it, if the police had done what they were supposed to do, it would have never happened,” Profitt said.

What Tim Profitt has yet to grasp is that what he and the other thugs were caught on camera in the act of violating Lauren Valle’s First Amendment right. What these purported patriotic, Constitution-loving tea baggers did was not just unconstitutional, it was un-American.

Profitt’s dissembling here is instructive in that it exposes the irresistible impulse of the right-wing fringe to oppress dissent. He and his cohorts were apparently truly clueless that Valle’s “stunt” was free speech. They actually believed that since the police wouldn’t shut down the Moveon.org protest, it was their right, their duty, to suppress it.

Talk about a teachable moment. Someone needs to school Tim Profitt and other tea baggers on how the Constitution really works. Let’s hope the Kentucky legal system is sufficiently untainted by Republican politics that it will mete out the justice these thugs have earned. A little jail time for Tim Profitt and Mike Pezzano (or whomever) would send a signal to right-wing cryptofascists in the GOP-tea party and beyond that the First Amendment applies to everyone, including liberals.