This morning, at the University of Kentucky not far away from the library and the VA hospital, students and faculty found an effigy of Barack Obama hanging from a tree. And I mean literally, rope-noose kind of ‘hanging’.

No videos of the news-stories yet, but I expect I’ll find some by tomorrow.

More below the fold.

This is all over the local news. Faculty, the President of UK, select students, and even Governor Steve Bashear are condemning it. They’re calling it ‘bigoted’, ‘racist’, ‘offensive’, ‘despicable’, ‘poor judgement’, and (in the words of our Governor) “This is not political speech. This is pure hate.”

Nobody yet knows who did it, but the UK cops are investigating this and the FBI and Secret Service have been contacted. Some say they could be facing federal charges, hate crimes charges, disorderly conduct… if they’re even charged at all, even /if/ they’re caught.

The mannequin–wearing khaki jeans, a white-collared shirt, a blue sweater/blazer, and a Barack Obama Halloween mask–was strung up on a very tall tree with the rope tied around multiple branches. It took police using a cherry-picker in order to cut it down.

To WLEX-18’s credit in their 6 o’clock news-story, they also added the story of the Sarah Palin effigy in California as contrast afterwards. The owners of /that/ Californian home say that it’s ‘no big deal’, and the city of Los Angeles say that they can’t do anything because “even though it may be tasteless, it isn’t illegal”.

So it’s OK for Palin to be lynched from the side of a house, but it’s not OK for Obama to get the same treatment?

It’s all true, even in as red of a state as Kentucky is. You cannot claim ‘Freedom of Speech’ if you say or do something in protest of That One. Though personally, I’m not sure what I think about this one… other than it took a lot of guts.

Sources: WLEX-18 NBC’s story[WTVQ-36 ABC’s story] (http://www.wtvq.com/news/1-Latest%20News/2311-effigy-of-obama-found-hanging-from-tree.html )[WKYT-27 CBS’s story] (http://www.wkyt.com/home/headlines/33513019.html)

By the way, read the comments after WKYT-27’s story. As you can see, most people are outraged alright–outraged that this is seen as a ‘hate-crime’ but the Californian Palin effigy is ‘freedom of speech’. It gives me hope that Fayette County isn’t completely lost to the left yet, even with UK.