A New Development In Hate Crime Hoaxes?

The stabbing of a Muslim taxi driver in New York was immediately linked to the protests against the proposed mosque at Ground Zero, until it emerged that the main suspect, Michael Enright, is an activist in a group that supports the proposed building and promotes interfaith understanding.

Since the story has been the subject of much speculation with various groups and pundits using it as an opportunity to condemn opponents of the Mosque for stirring up hatred I shall give my guess as to the motivation behind the assault.

It looks to me like a variation on the ubiquitous "hate crime hoax" craze, in which someone stages a bogus attack against themselves and then milks the ensuing publicity to denounce their political opponents and draw attention to the cause they are promoting. Except instead of staging a bogus attack on himself, Enright carried out a real attack on someone else in the hope that it could be used to delegitimise his opponents.