Bill Keller of the NYT advises Romney, at tonight's debate, "to demonstrate that you understand the world is a complex, unpredictable, subtle and rapidly metamorphosing place."

There's a list of subtopics, beginning with "Go easy on Benghazi."

Trayvon Martin and Tyler Clementi... and the notion of "hate crimes."

Bill Keller, the former executive editor of the NYT, explains "Why Liberals Should Hate ‘Hate Crime Legislation.'"

There is nothing novel about the law taking into account a criminal’s state of mind; one of the prerequisites for a conviction under common law is “mens rea” — a guilty mind, malice aforethought, criminal intent. The law also recognizes gradations of guilty purpose. A premeditated killing is more punishable than one committed in the heat of the moment, which is worse than a killing that results from negligence. New York law compounds the punishment if you kill someone to prevent him from being a witness.

The distinction [law-and-philosophy prof Heidi M.] Hurd makes — convincingly, I think — is that when you penalize intent you are punishing matters of choice. One can choose not to pull the trigger, not to throw the rock, not to steal the purse.

“You can’t choose not to be prejudiced or biased — at least not willy-nilly, on the spot,” she told me, when I called her the other day at the University of Illinois. “We pass moral judgments all the time against bigots and chauvinists and homophobes and so forth. But this is a question not of what we should morally blame people for, but of what we should deprive them of liberty for.”...

In most cases, hate crime laws take offenses that would carry more modest sentences — assault, vandalism — and ratchet up the penalty two or three times because we know, or think we know, what evil disposition lurked in the offender’s mind. Then we pat ourselves on the back. As if none of us, pure and righteous citizens, ever entertained a racist thought or laughed at a homophobic slur.

Via David Lat.

"The best tool is a national identity card, including some biometric evidence, such as a fingerprints."

Writes NYT editor Bill Keller, praising Newt Gingrich for showing "a combination of brains, heart and guts that puts the rest of his party to shame."

Gingrich braves the wrath of libertarians and privacy campaigners to endorse it. In today’s living-online, GPS-tracked world, I think a national identity card would find wide acceptance.

Wait! Since when do liberal columnists love tough ID card policies? I don't know about Keller specifically, but I thought it was an article of faith that requiring a photo ID for voting is about disenfranchising minorities. Suddenly, a card with fingerprints is supposed to be a smart, brave, and compassionate idea?

Keller is talking about immigration policy, but I have to go over to Newt's website to puzzle it out:

There has to be a legal guest worker program....

We can build on the universal system of biometric, tamper-proof visa documents that all visitors must have, and invite a private-sector firm with a proven track record to monitor the guest worker program.

For guest workers, the new tamper-proof, biometric cards will replace the e-verify system, which has some promising elements, but is too error-prone. Employers will be able to swipe prospective employees biometric cards, and immediately be able to confirm that these workers are in the country legally.

Oh, I see. Only the guest workers will need to have these cards in order to work. Not everyone else. Keller doesn't mention that, for some reason. Newt seems to be simply opening a path for some noncitizens to work here legally and to prove that's what they are doing. Obviously, others would continue to work here without the documentation, and then there's the problem of all the Hispanic people who really are citizens who might be hassled over their lack of cards. Why isn't Keller concerned about that? Remember all the fuss about ID-checking back in 2010 when Arizona adopted a new immigration policy?

UPDATE: Wow! Less than an hour after I posted this, the Supreme Court announced it was taking a case about the Arizona immigration law mentioned above! (I'll put up a new post about that.)