"I'd say it's prudent that the South Korean students avoid their tempermental white neighbors."

Oh, OK Howard, so only "white" folk might be capable of a racist response? That is a point either directly stated or implied (with utter blindness to the unequivocal racism behind it) in a number of letters here.

An anti-Korean response could come from a bigot of any non-Korean background, including other East Asians. I realize self-hating leftists get off on the idea that white people represent the pinnacle of racism, but racism ironically is color-blind.

That said the hysteria at Salon and as it turns out the MSM over this issue is insulting in its assumption that Americans (again read 'white Americans') are just seething cauldrons of racial hatred. Making racist assumptions about whites is acceptable for some reason?

Some one brought up the tragic incident of a Sikh being killed in the wake of 9/11 in order to rationalize these fears. In response to a mass terrorist attack Americans managed to keep a lid on their supposed seething cauldron of racial hatred (I'm going to keep using that phrase) with one isolated incident. Yet the VT shootings happen and Salonistas instantly fear a redux of the Tulsa Race Riots? Get a grip on reality.

Salon now advocates scraping part of the Bill of Rights.… This is straight out of what would previously have been an absurd charicature of some of the extremist leftist views at Salon.

People like Shapiro are I suspect totalitarians at heart because only someone with absolute faith in the supremacy of the state could fail to grasp the sound reasons the framers of the Constitution had for allowing citizens to bear arms. Doing away with the 2nd Amendment would be tantamount to abandoning the principles of justified rebellion (how do you do that without firearms?) embodied in the Declaration of Independence as well. Although extra legal nothing better defines who we are as a nation and people than that document.

Moreover Shapiro pays lip service to how cherished freedom of religion and speech are but I bet he is exactly the kind of faux-liberal who says ‘I support free expression, but….’ A lot of people at Salon like to add that ‘but’ when some politically-favorable victim group is involved. 'Being less free makes us safer!'

"Only a cloistered armchair liberal who has never had to fight for any of his freedoms, let alone his life, would make such a naive and absurd statement as this."

I think that one sentence encapsulates the absurdity of Shapiro's piece as well as anything.

This is a trifling issue compared to so much the Bush administration has done; this sort of thing happens with people of any ideological background or political affiliation. The letters here are simply chilling thought in their hatred and irrational obsession with the Neo-Cons. The sexist barbs aimed at Shaha Ali Riza disturb me the most. This woman has not “slept her way to the top”, is not Wolfowitz’s “crumpet”, and the sum of her merits is not being “his girfriend”. The far Left is simply drowning in its hatred of the Bush administration. There are a thousand other issues of greater importance to liberal causes than this tabloid trash. Salon should be ashamed to focus on it in this manner.

The 9/11 hate-crime victims were targeted because they were perceived rightly or not to belong to a given ideological group, Islam. That same ideology was the driving force behind the terororist attacks in the minds of the attackers. Whether they are 'right' about their interpretaion of Islam is another issue, but Al Qaeda has clearly and openly cited the Qur'an and life of Mohammed as a basis for its actions. Moreover the perpetrators of 9/11 represented an an organized movement.

The fact Sikhs, wearing the obligatory turban most likely, were killed speaks to it not being racial. I am sure the killers could have found many victims 'swathy' enough to sate a racial bloodlust but instead they reacted to what they (ignorantly) though was proof of the victim being a devout or conservative Muslim. A proud and loud white Muslim in skull cap and robe Muslim would have likely not fared any better and might even have been killed in more savage a fashion.

Let's review VT vs. 9/11

- Lone killer v. organized terrorist group of thousands.

- Personal mental illness vs. established religious ideology shared by millions.

- Common mode of attack vs. an unprecedented strike method.

- Killer was a member of the affected community vs. 9/11 attackers were infiltrated agents.

Ultimately I find it preposterous to compare the two tragedies. Attempts like this to rationalize fears of a racial backlash are at best fallacious and at worst part of a game played by the Left for political gain.