Via Washington Monthly.
Some skinheads plotted to assassinate Obama and kill some 102 African-American children. As they were from Tennessee, the Tennessee Republican Party felt compelled to respond. They said:
"Hate is not a political party, policy statement, agenda or ideology — it is a pure evil that no place in civil society," said Robin Smith, Chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party. "Whether it is neo-Nazi skinheads plotting a racist shooting spree targeting Sen. Obama, or West Hollywood liberals hanging Gov. Sarah Palin in effigy and calling it 'art,' or unknown anarchists tossing bricks through the windows of a county Republican headquarters in Murfreesboro, Americans of all political views should be outraged."
A tasteless effigy and anonymous (who said they're anarchists?) bricks don't remotely equal political assassination and racially motivated mass murder. Nice attempted red herring however.
Good assessment – I do think that – if someone hung a likeness of Gov. Palin in Effigy – we need to take things like that seriously. If someone had done the same with Senator Obama or Senator Clinton, folks on the left would be up in arms.
The whole “moral equivalency” thing has emerged (again) in this election cycle to downplay hateful rhetoric from the Right and somehow create the impression that the same thing is happening on the Left as well.