Now we have Sarah “Barracuda” Palin, the former half-term Alaska governor, weighing in on one of the most bizarre political escapades in recent history.

It’s a “non-story,” she declared this week while throwing her support behind a tea party challenger to U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/senate-races/207821-palin-dismisses-non-stories-as-she-stumps-for-mcdaniel

What, then, is the “non-story”? It deals with efforts to video-record Cochran’s bed-ridden wife in the nursing home where she lives to use in an attack video against the veteran Republican lawmaker.

My question is this: What in name of all that is holy is the purpose of such a disgraceful deed?

The challenger, Chris McDaniel, disavows any involvement. The cops have arrested four supporters, alleging criminal conspiracy and criminal trespass for breaking into the nursing home where Mrs. Cochran resides.

Cochran, of course, is outraged. He should be.

I keep wondering about the end game here. What are the pro-McDaniel goofballs seeking to illustrate by showing Mrs. Cochran in the nursing home; she’s been under 24-hour care for more than a decade.

It’s one thing for the tea party to target someone such as Sen. Cochran, who’s been a reliably — and largely reasonable — conservative for his entire Senate career. The tea party wing already has taken down other GOP stalwarts, such as Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar and Utah Sen. Bob Bennett. The tea partiers went after Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, but got thumped. Now they want Thad Cochran’s scalp?

As for the one-time GOP vice-presidential nominee, Palin is showing yet again her habit of blaming the media for keeping a so-called “non-story” alive.

It most certainly is a story when political operatives working on behalf of a candidate for an important public office stoop to gutter-level tactics.