The United States Secret Service visited Chicago's Columbia College in mid-April to investigate an artwork that bore an image of George W. Bush with a gun to his head. Titled Patriot Act, the work was part of Axis of Evil: The Secret History of Sin, an exhibition of works by 47 international artists who created mock postage stamps on various themes. The feds ended up snapping some photos, asking some questions, and writing down some students' phone numbers. An alarming glimpse into the Bush administration's stance on free expression, but essentially no big deal, right?

The story would be a dismissible blip were it not for the irony. Agents were dispatched to a little-known gallery to investigate a rather blunt artwork by a little-known artist, while no similar effort was launched to investigate a public threat on public officials by a man with considerably more influence. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, lamenting the "moral poverty" and "legal tragedy" of the federal court decision that finally allowed Terri Schiavo to die, issued an ominous statement—one he wouldn't retract—that "the time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior." His timing was appalling: a month earlier, the mother and husband of Chicago judge Joan Lefkow were brutally murdered by a man incensed at Lefkow for a legal opinion that—like DeLay's—didn't go his way. Given the real threat from conservatives who've declared war on so-called "activist judges," the Secret Service's visit to Columbia College seems laughably excessive.