I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the same sort of hyperbole and loose language that made Sen. John Cornyn the focus of so much outrage?

Not since the 1960's, when federal judges in the South were threatened by cross burnings and firebombs, have judges been so besieged.

Cornyn gets in trouble for suggesting that outrageous decisions by the courts may make people mad and violent -- and that would be wrong. And then Times' Adam Cohen goes and compares that oft-Dowdified statement (when it was often quoted in some newspapers and just about every lefty blog, his statement that violence was wrong somehow found its way to the cutting room floor) to cross-burnings and firebombs.

Pot. Kettle.