" Ron: Oh, now I realize that you probably see it as "hate speech" "

Honestly, I am not 100% sure how I feel about this story, but that wasn't the point I was trying to make. The point is, they are treating the ham sandwich incident as a hate crime, just as they treated Imus as hate speech.   Is there a difference? Do we feel different about one situation as opposed to the other? In both cases, someone was deeply offended - either by race or religion.