Clarification issued

Remember last night's post about the lynched effigy of Sarah Palin in West Hollywood? No? Well, you may have been drunk. Happens to the best of us.

Anyway, our jackbooted friend and co-blogger alexthechick left the following in the comment section:

How is that not a hate crime? Seriously, using the definitions so favored by the Left, that is a hate crime.

Well, thanks to the Los Angeles Times, I have an answer for alex (sort of):

"I'm not defending this; I'm not criticizing it. It doesn't rise to the level of hate crime," said Steve Whitmore, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, who said he went out to the house himself to look at the display this morning.

"Now, if there was a crime against bad taste . . . "

[...]

Whitmore said that potential hate crimes are evaluated on a case-by-case basis. If the same display had been made of a Barack Obama-like doll, for example, authorities would have to evaluate it independently, Whitmore said.

"That adds a whole other social, historical hate aspect to the display, and that is embedded in the consciousness of the country," he said, adding he's not sure whether it would be a hate crime. "It would be ill-advised of anybody to speculate on that."

I hope that, uh, clears things up.  Let's not have anymore ill-advised speculation about this non-issue, m'kay?

Posted by: Sean M. at 11:31 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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