I am afraid that complaining about calling for the beheading of Sarah Palin IN THIS SPECIFIC CASE falls into the category of “They will get away with it:” the production was of The Mikado, which is a Gilbert & Sullivan opera that features a song called “As someday it may happen” (more commonly known as “I’ve Got A Little List”). The topic of said song is about suitable subjects for execution; it was wide-ranging in the original, included public figures generally, and has traditionally been updated to include contemporary targets. I can personally speak to this tradition being both real, and scrupulously followed; a decade ago I attended one revival in DC where the song called for the mass culling of everybody involved in Bush vs. Gore.
Not having seen the production by the Missoula Children’s Theater, I don’t actually know if the aforementioned beheading was included in that specific song; if it wasn’t, the letter writer has a point. If it was… hey, I love reading Instapundit and James Taranto, but the Republic has survived in spite of this tradition for a century now. The real question is whether the director thought to balance the score by, say, hoping for the defenestration of a left-wing politician…
Moe Lane
[UPDATE]: James kindly sent me the MCT Community Theater’s (I was pleasantly surprised to hear that kids were being shown Gilbert & Sullivan) “Sorry if anybody was offended; we’ve removed the lines in question” response. I normally hate that sort of thing, so I will simply note that they did so and move, as they say, on.