I just saw a story in ABC News on TV (can’t find video of same on the web yet) claiming that hate crimes and Ku Klux Klan recruitment have “surged” since Barack Obama was elected. The teaser before the break really caught my ear, so I listened very carefully to the story, eager to hear how ABC had reached this conclusion.

There was not one bit of evidence offered in support of this thesis. Indeed, much of the story was spent talking about a recent successful lawsuit against some Klan members for the beating of a Native American they took for Latino. There was also some general discussion about how the Klan recruits online and people can participate in hate speech from “the privacy of their bedroom.”

But evidence of a recent surge in hate crimes or Klan recruitment? Zip. Nada. Zilch.

So I looked for video of the ABC story on the web, and in the process ran across a related story on Yahoo! News making the same claim. Not only was this story (from Agence France Presse) devoid of evidence, it also tried to pin part of the blame on Sarah Palin. Here’s the meat of the piece (emphasis mine):

Mark Potok, director of the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, said the final weeks of the US election campaign and its immediate aftermath had witnessed “hundreds and hundreds” of hate-related incidents.

“Since the closing weeks of the campaign, we’ve seen a real and significant, white backlash break out and I think it’s getting worse,” Potok told AFP.

OK, we’ve got “hundreds and hundreds” of incidents. How does that compare to pre-election rates of incidents? That should be the basis for any claim that hate is “surging,” shouldn’t it? But hey who needs evidence when the headline of the article notes that “experts” have noted the increase?

Potok traced the onset of the incidents to around the time of election rallies by Republican vice-presidential hopeful Sarah Palin where shouts of “Kill Him!” were reportedly heard from sections of the crowd.

The Secret Service found these allegations to be unfounded. Yet reports of one guy at one rally morphed into allegations of a racist campaign.

“But what we’re seeing now is everything from cross burnings, to death threats, to Obama effigies hanging in nooses to ugly racial incidents in schoolyards around the country,” Potok said.

“It’s been really quite something. I can’t quantify the figures beyond saying that clearly there have been hundreds and hundreds of these incidents.”

Brian Levin, a professor from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino also said the rise in hate crimes appeared to fit into part of a longer term trend.

“We don’t have exact figures but what I can say anecdotally is that there does seem to be a significant spike in hate crimes from around the election period up until now,” Levin said.

Levin also said there was evidence of a surge in traffic on white supremacist Internet websites such as StormFront, whose server crashed on the day after the November 4 election due to the uptick in activity.

Wow, these guys are really crunching the numbers, aren’t they? As for the server crash . . . ah, a little bit of evidence. Finally.

But if the crash was really due to increased activity, you’d think Storm Front would be pretty proud of that, wouldn’t you? Check their website. I can’t find anything about that (though it is a confusing mess of discussion boards and blogs). But hey, I’ll give ‘em the benefit of the doubt on this one, and assume that the servers really crashed and that the overload wasn’t fueled by reporters looking for a story. But it still isn’t evidence of an increase in hate crimes.

Levin said he had also noticed a ramping up of the vitriol. “It is harder to gauge but it does seem to be much more severe than usual,” he said.

Wow! Harder to gauge than “We don’t have exact figures” and anecdotally-derived “surges”? That really is hard!

For white supremacists, Obama — who is also reportedly preparing to appoint the country’s first ever African-American attorney general, EricHolder — represented the doomsday scenario espoused by their ideology, Levin said.

“To them Barack Obama is nothing less than the anti-Christ. He not only represents policies that are eroding the white culture and bloodline of the United States; he is a walking, talking symbol of what they would call the ‘mongrelization’ that has occurred,” he said.

“Barack Obama is a perfect storm that incites a nerve within the hardcore racist movement in the United States.”

Summing up, then: hardcore racists and white supremacists who hated blacks and saw the country going to hell in a handbasket before the election are even more pissed off now that Obama won the election. Man, I’m shocked! I thought they’d all just shut up and go away!

Despite the horrible quality of the reporting, I suspect they’re right, at least about an increase in racist anger among those who where already vocally angry racists. And that may have even resulted in more hate crimes. But neither ABC News nor AFP even documented the purported increase in hate crimes. They expect it, so it’s true.

Finally, what photo does Yahoo! News use with the story? A burning cross? An Obama effigy? No . . . a Secret Service agent doing his job:

You know, before Obama was elected, there was simply no need for presidential security details! At least, that’s what you’d think from the accompanying caption when you click the photo:

A member of the US Secret Service (R) looks out the back of an SUV as US President-elect Barack Obama’s motorcade drives through the streets of Chicago on his way to his transition offices on November 18, 2008. An interracial couple in Pennsylvania who [sic] woke up to find the remains of a burnt cross in their front garden.

In other news, security continues to be maintained at banks, and some guy found $200,000 in the wall of a house he was renovating. That connection makes about as much sense, anyway.

Again, I have no doubt Obama’s election has driven some racists nuts, may lead more of them to commit hate crimes, and may even lead some racist to try to kill Obama. In fact, I hope the Secret Service is monitoring the hardore racists and taking other measures to increase Obama’s (and his family’s) level of protection above that afforded past presidents, because I’m worried some nut will try to get at him or his family.

But is it too much to ask for reporting on this subject to make sense? How about providing the evidence and rationally connecting it to the conclusion?

UPDATE (1/11/09): R.S. McCain’s not about to let Southern Poverty Law Center get away wih claiming to be able to foretell the future.