At a big, classy town hall event in Rochester, New Hampshire, on Thursday evening, Donald Trump fielded a question from an unidentified man, who announced, “We have a problem in this country. It’s called Muslims. You know our current president is one. You know he’s not even an American. … Anyway we have training camps growing where they want to kill us. That’s my question: When can we get rid of them?”

Without specifying which part of the man’s diatribe he meant to address, Trump responded "We're going to be looking at a lot of different things. You know, a lot of people are saying that and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening. We're going to be looking at that and many other things."

Trump is being rightly pilloried for not dressing down the questioner, including by Republican operatives, who are happily forwarding along the unflattering news clips that followed.

There’s no sense in giving Trump a pass on this, but it’s worth keeping in mind that this isn’t a Trump problem. It’s a politician problem, and in particular it’s a Republican politician problem. The Republican interest in Trump’s dishonorable conduct is deeply selective.

Anyone who’s watched C-SPAN call-in shows can sympathize with people put into Trump’s predicament. Campaigns, and especially campaigns, draw out the most agitated voters in the country, in the same way a political call-in line self-selects for people with things they need to get off their chests.