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.

The death penalty amendment is easy to get rid of.  What will probably stand unless someone starts complaining is your little amendment making attacks on servicemen per se 'hate crimes.'  Sounds innocuous, sounds like something a good Democrat wanting to show his support for the military could easily accept, as Sen. Leahy did.

All it does is destroy the essential idea of the bill, make the proponents look as if they are doing just what their opponents are accusing them of doing, and possibly threaten the constitutionality of the bill.  Nice work, Jeff!

One criticism that 'hate crimes' legislation -- and almost every piece of pro-gay legislation -- receives is that it gives gays 'special privileges,' or makes them a 'protected class.'  It's not a valid criticism, but it has been made so often that drafters of hate crimes legislation have very carefully crafted it to ward against such legislation being taken in such a way.

Hate crimes legislation -- even the anti-lynching legislation that was the first example -- does not create 'protected classes' -- and if it did might be of dubious Constitutionality.  Yes, blacks were the most frequent -- but, especially during the period of the 'second Klan,' not the only -- victims of lynching.  But it was the act and the motivation that was the center of such laws, not the victim.

The same principle has been carried on to the current legislation.  If someone attacks me because I play my tv loud, or because he hates my cats, or just to rob me, the fact that I am gay is irrelevant to the incident and no hate crime legislation will give me any more protection than it does the rabbi next door.  But if some bigot gets his addresses confused, and attacks Rabbi Zvi, thinking he is gay -- or me, thinking I'm the rabbi, or even Jewish -- the fact that the person attacked is not truly a 'member of the group' is irrelevant to the 'hate crime' part of the act.

Let me repeat this.  No hate crime legislation, properly drawn, creates a special 'protected category.'  No such legislation punishes someone more severely because they attacked a gay, or a black, or someone Jewish.  It only punishes someone whose action is designed to intimidate a group by singling out a member of it -- or a supporter of the group.

(It also does another thing.  It tells certain types of violent bigots, lynchers, gay bashers, and even wife-beaters -- 'domestic violence legislation' is another type of hate crime bill -- that previously tolerated or overlooked actions will now be prosecuted.  There might be no need for hate crimes legislation if the legal system had not -- in practice -- treated these offenses as minor and even understandable.)

This WAS true, until the Sessions Amendment, which, by making 'servicemen' in fact a 'protected category,' casts doubt on the entire reasoning above, and makes the legislation much more open to Constitutional challenge.

This Amendment -- sadly accepted by a 92-0 vote -- provides "

It would make it a crime if someone "knowingly assaults or batters a United States serviceman or an immediate family member of a United States serviceman, or who knowingly destroys or injures the property of such serviceman or immediate family member, on account of the military service of that serviceman or status of that individual as a United States serviceman, or who attempts or conspires to do so."

It was precisely this type of 'status' legislation that the drafters of the original legislation knew was dangerous, wrong, and would give ammunition to those who protect their freedom to hate.  (And, interetingly, if you Google 'hate crimes servicemen' the first references you find are articles from Steve Sailer, VDARE and the "Romanian National Vanguard News Agency."  And if Focus on the Family -- who repeated the same myths - is not a hate group in the sense these others are, it has never been at the forefront of preaching tolerance.)

It will be easy to stop the 'death penalty' Amendment.  And I'm sure Sen. Sessions knew it would be strpped from the bill.  It's that other, unanimously adopted, 'non-controversial' Amendment that is the true 'poison pill' -- and it's going to be a lot harder to get it out.  But calling or writing Senator Leahy or other proponents will help.