Naturally, the Denver Post this morning, gets it wrong. The whole focus of their article is on some supposed connection between "The Movie" and the swastikas. For this, they provide exactly zero evidence, although they're pretty generous with the conjecture. All of the "Related Links" in the column to the right are about the movie - its box office, the controversy, the sign.

Drawing a connection between "The Passion" and this is like connecting global warming to rising Slurpee sales - really good politics, and maybe something Al Gore should have thought of, but not necessarily good science. There's no doubt that this was a propitious time for something like this, and it probably comes more from the controversy around the film, and the assumption that it spurs anti-Semitism (for which Mona Charen and Charles Krauthammer have provided excellent commentary). The Nazis were pagans, after all.

It's tempting to draw these straight lines, both for simple-minded newspapers and for mono-focused organizations like the ADL (although they seem to have time to promote gay marriage on the side, too). There's no doubt that 1800 years of blaming the Jews prepared the ground for the Holocaust. There's no doubt in my mind, although the Caltholic Church denies it, that the Holocaust was the reason for Vatican II's "clarification." The two phenomena are connected, and one is the horrible, logical final outcome of the other. But people have been drawing swastiaks on buildings as long as I can remember.

We may actually find out the connection here, if there is any. The Denver Police seem inclined to investigate. The Boulder Police would probably still be figuring out if it's a hate crime. Swastikas on the sidewalk and on a sukkah didn't seem to qualify for them, about 18 months ago.