Weekly Standard: It’s ‘likely’ that the swastika at Rep. Scott’s office is a ‘fake hate crime.’

By Amanda Terkel

This morning, Rep. David Scott (D-GA) discovered that someone had spray-painted a swastika on the sign at one of his district offices. On Twitter, various right-wing observers immediately began speculating that it was a staged stunt. Now, Weekly Standard writer John McCormack has legitimized these fringe perspectives:

In recent years self-inflicted hate crimes have come into vogue among certain citizens on the right and the left.

Of course sometimes “hate crimes” are real (for example, this spring a College Democrat desecrated crosses at George Washington University with graffiti and condoms). It’s possible that a neo-Nazi actually vandalized Rep. Scott’s offices. But given the fact that the Nazi imagery so neatly dovetails with the left’s smearing of health-care protesters as fascists, isn’t it more likely that this act of vandalism was committed by one of Scott’s supporters?

Scott’s press assistant Jennifer Wright was “taken aback — but mainly amused” by the Weekly Standard’s accusation. “Personally I think it’s funny that he thinks a David Scott supporter put the swastika on the sign,” Wright told TPM, “especially given what’s been happening in the media with the Congressman.”

Update Bill Nigut, the Southeast Regional Director of the Anti-Defamation League, put out a statement calling the swastika at Scott's office was a "frightening display of bigotry and ignorance that should not be tolerated by a democratic society."