Sen. Sessions and the Hate Crime misdirection
Any good magician, pickpocket, or detective story writer knows the benefit of misdirection. Make sure everyone is watching one hand, and then do your mischief with the other.
And Republicans have been very good at the same technique as well. Usually defensively -- shout your homophobia to the world so that no one will notice those white stains on your cheek, shirt, or jeans when you leave the men's room. (As someone who has had many similar white stains, I am not criticizing Republican gayness but their hypocrisy.)
But some have started using it as a technique on offense as well. Ann Coulter is particularly good at making outrageous, easily refutable statements that get her headlines, get people curious if 'she really said that' and buying her book. And the people who do find her usual piles of equine excrement -- but ones that have gone unexamined by the media and bloggers as they attack her where she has chosen the battle. (GODLESS was a prime example, as we all remember the battles it caused over some of her statements about liberals -- but no one attacked the -- equally absurd -- case she made in favor of creationism.and I'm sure a lot of her readers -- even those who read her as a 'freak show' -- had never studied the question and found her arguments on the topic plausible.)
But I don't recall offhand any previous example of the tactic being used on legislation before. So Jeff Sessions, you've earned your membership in the Magic Circle, the Thieves' Guild, or the MWA. And, sadly, your 'stooge from the audience' that fell for your sleight-of-hand was someone who's usually one of the more intelligent Senators, Pat Leahy.
You knew that everybody would catch the 'death penalty' Amendment and scream about this -- and rightly so. I'm sure you realized that it would cause enough comment that it would be stricken in conference, and everyone would be complimenting the conferees at 'ducking a bullet.' Meanwhile you slipped your -- I assume -- real 'poison pill' into the legislation and even got Sen. Leahy to agree to it.
