BILL MCGURN: What Would Atticus Do? ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ meets the Trayvon Martin shooting.

UPDATE: “Since when can a group of people in the United States put a bounty on someone’s head, circulate Wanted posters publicly, and still be walking the streets?”

More: “Good lord, what an ugly place we are in right now. Who would have thought that in the last year of Obama’s presidential term, the public mind would obsess over race at this level? I’m recalling the media coverage of election night, 2008, and the inauguration, when there was a rhapsody of closure and a feeling — some called it ‘hope’ — that we had entered a new era of harmony. How did we get sucked into some nightmare parody of the past? If it’s not Obama’s fault, can he at least do something to yank us up out of this awful place? In 2009 or even 2011, he would have given a speech. He would have believed he could rescue us with a speech, perhaps because we kind of thought he could. Maybe no one believes anymore. There’s a hope vacuum, and look what’s moving in.”