Bob #151 — no, it won’t be counted as hate. Neither were the 3,000 anti-American nationality murders of 9/11.

However, activists groups are already claiming anti-Arab backlash — they’re not saying where, of course — and I predict that before the end of the day, Obama will be speaking out against those imaginary non-incidents as hate crimes, but not the 12 killings, of course.

In fairness, Bush did precisely the same thing in 2001. It was within his power to urge the F.B.I. to record the 3,000 murders as hate crimes, and he did not.

We can’t possibly have the most prevalent form of hate crime being hatred of Americans, now can we?