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"I was caught up in the frenzy," he wrote in an apology letter to the Korean War veterans' association whose uniform he was wearing at the rally. "I physically pushed a young woman down the aisle toward the exit, an action I sincerely regret."

Thank you, Mr. Bamberger. I'd be lying if I didn't admit to a certain amount of satisfaction that the pompous Trump is being called to account at least a little for his reckless and dangerous dives into hate-pandering demagoguery on the campaign trail.

Even as you watch Nwanguma and other protestors getting ejected from the Louisville rally you can hear Trump complaining about busloads Syrian refugees being let into our country "without paperwork" or "any other way to tell who they are." In fact, refugees typically undergo more than a year and a half of vetting. Yet Trump fed this and other lies without regard to the hate that he was fueling.

With that in mind it is hardly surprising that one of the other two Trump supporters named as a defendant in the lawsuit is activist Matthew Heimbach, whom the Southern Poverty Law Center has described as "the face of a new generation of white nationalists."

Still, Bamberger's counter-claim sounds a bit like the proverbial guy who killed his parents, then asks for sympathy because he's an orphan. Getting "caught up in the frenzy" of an agitated crowd isn't an excuse. It's a recipe for mob action.

What happened, I cannot help but ask, to the time-honored conservative virtue of personal responsibility? Suing Trump or any other speaker for inciting you to abandon good judgement reminds me of the lawsuits filed against fast food companies for making us fat. I'm upset with them, too, but I can't honestly blame them for all the cheeseburgers I've eaten.

So it is with the rallies of Donald Trump or any other charismatic speaker whose hate-baiting gets out of hand. We don't have to take the bait.

(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)

(c) 2017 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.