I don't know whether this is a hate crime, but it certainly qualifies as an assault:

TUCSON, Ariz. - Two men ran onstage and threw custard pies at conservative columnist Ann Coulter as she was giving a speech at the University of Arizona, hitting her in the shoulder, police said.

University police arrested the men but did not release their identities.

In her half-hour speech Thursday night, Coulter trashed Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and derided liberals and Democrats while saluting conservative students who attended her speech.

Coulter writes a column for Universal Press Syndicate. Her appearance was sponsored by the UA College Republicans.

What's the difference between throwing a pie at someone and throwing a rotten egg? Or, for that matter, urine or excrement? Saliva? (Link via InstaPundit.) Is the fact that pies are edible relevant?

As I read this, I wondered.... When was the last time someone threw a pie at a leftist? Had it ever happened?

Oddly enough it has happened. In 1998, a pie was thrown at San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown by leftier-than-thou activists (a move which backfired):

What it did create was a counterattack by Brown's supporters, who, incredibly, claimed that by pieing Brown (an African American) the group exhibited racist behavior. Confronted with attacks on its own politics, the BBB quickly apologized to Brown supporters for how the act could have been perceived, and met with some of them to, as Komisaruk puts it, "try to get some healing out of this."

The Brown episode is not the BBB's only misstep. Says Pope: "They pied me because they believed I had not opposed the Quincy Library bill," a legislative attempt environmentalists claim will increase logging in California's northeastern forests. But, he says, the Sierra Club did fight it: "[That is] a bill both the Sierra Club and I spent an enormous amount of time and energy opposing." Pope's annoyance with the misplaced anger of the BBB is only exacerbated by what he sees as the short attention span of the media. "The press covering this is not saying, Do these people know anything about the issues they're talking about? They're saying, These pie people threw a pie."

What if the victim is an elderly Jew? According to the pie-throwers themselves, Milton Friedman was pied for the crime of "neoliberalism." In another instance of brave activism, Robert Shapiro was pied for advocating genetic engineering instead of sustainable agriculture.

The pie in the face draws attention to your cause.

During their trial, the lawyers for the Cherry Pie Three argued that pie-throwing is an act of political protest. More than once, defense attorney Katya Komisaruk remarked that "throwing a pie is like burning the flag."

Actually, says the Sierra Club's Carl Pope, "it's like being slugged. The pie has nothing to do with it -- it's the fist behind the pie."

While there's nothing funny about being slugged, somehow being hit with a pie is seen as funny. Harmless. Noble.

Here's another pieing explanation:

Pie-slinging is the latest implement in a diverse toolbox of global activist resistance. Few things are as effective in subverting shareholders' meetings, conferences and keynote speeches, as a well-placed pie and a captivating press release.

One aspect of this new campaign is nothing gets hurt except the image and ego of the targets.

But wouldn't there have been more sympathy had the victim been Michael Moore and the pie-thrower a young Republican? Well, Moore's a big man; how about, say, Christopher Reeve's wife? In any of these cases, "nothing was hurt except the image and the ego of the targets." The thinking seems to be that whether or not pie-throwing is justifiable has something to do with whether the target "deserved it."

I think that's ridiculously subjective, and certainly not legally relevant. If I throw a pie at a total stranger walking down the street, why is that worse than if I selected someone deliberately? Why is the latter "funny" but not the former? To randomly pie someone simply because the pie-thrower is in the mood (or wants to engage in a little target practice) would seem to involve less malice than deliberately selecting a victim.

Or is the point whether or not the victim is considered guilty of having bad ideas? Being on the opposite side of an argument?

Is that it? Are we reduced to blaming the victim in these cases?

What happens if things start to snowball out of control? It happened here last winter:

PHILADELPHIA -- Some children playing in the snow in West Philadelphia Wednesday got a scare when a man they hit with a snowball allegedly pulled a gun on them.

The incident allegedly happened Wednesday morning in the 4400 block of Haverford Avenue.

Police said the 51-year-old man was hit in the face with a snowball. He then reportedly pointed a gun at several kids involved.

Police have not filed charges against the man, so NBC 10 News is not releasing his name. Investigators said they are getting a search warrant for his home.

Just today, Professor Bainbridge quoted two prominent leftist bloggers on the snowballing effect:

Small acts of nastiness and mean-spiritedness become common, and after awhile begin adding up. There's nothing organized, just an environment where politics actually begin to poison our community wells. (Via Glenn Reynolds.)

Professor Bainbridge also observes that "busting up other people's speeches was a classic Hitlerian tactic." While it's true that those who break up others' speeches are behaving like Nazis in that respect, it requires sharing more than one mutual characteristic of Nazis to make one a Nazi.

Abhorrent though it is, pie throwing is a far cry from Nazism, because Nazism was probably the most morally repugnant political movement in human history, and the accusation of being a Nazi is justifiably considered one of the worst insults which can be hurled at anyone.

Which means that to the extent that those who throw pies call their victims Nazis, that only renders their conduct all the more heinous.

UPDATE: Earlier, The Guardian published a piece expressing sympathy with the assassination of President Bush.

The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?

Well I'll be hornswaggled! They've pulled the story! Here's the explanation:

Screen Burn, The Guide

Sunday October 24, 2004
The Guardian

The final sentence of a column in The Guide on Saturday caused offence to some readers. The Guardian associates itself with the following statement from the writer.

"Charlie Brooker apologises for any offence caused by his comments relating to President Bush in his TV column, Screen Burn. The views expressed in this column are not those of the Guardian. Although flippant and tasteless, his closing comments were intended as an ironic joke, not as a call to action - an intention he believed regular readers of his humorous column would understand. He deplores violence of any kind."

Har!

Here's the Google cache. (I saved the original text for anyone who wants to read it.)