Of course. It’s all the same thing, right? I may not have a law degree but even I know why this is a dumb comparison.

Tom Blumer of News Busters reports.

In WaPo Column, Georgetown Prof Equates Defending Tsarnaev, Ariel Castro … and George Zimmerman

Abbe Smith, who has written an almost 1,500-word column for the Washington Post, is described as “a professor of law and the director of the Criminal Defense & Prisoner Advocacy Clinic at Georgetown University.”

The title of her column is “What motivates a lawyer to defend a Tsarnaev, a Castro or a Zimmerman?” — as if defending an alleged terrorist killer of three and maimer of hundreds, a imprisoner of multiple women and killer of pre-born babies (who yesterday pleaded guilty to the former and will escape the death penalty), and a man who killed an assailant only because he thought he would die if he didn’t are all virtually equally problematic. Excerpts follow the jump.

The column’s earlier and later paragraphs show that the headline fits the content. Here are a couple of the earlier ones:

Why choose to represent a man accused of turning the Boston Marathon finish line into a war zone?Likewise, how can the lawyers representing Cleveland’s Ariel Castro fight for a man who pleaded guilty on Friday to 937 counts related to the kidnapping, imprisonment and rape of three women? And what about the attorneys for the recently acquitted but still controversial George Zimmerman? Do they really believe he is completely innocent of any wrongdoing in shooting an unarmed teen?

The question isn’t whether Zimmerman is innocent of “wrongdoing,” and Ms. Smith should know that. The question is whether or not he was innocent of a legally defined crime. A jury found that he wasn’t. Mark O’Mara, Zimmerman’s lawyer, was defending Zimmerman on self-defense grounds, which (really, I have to write this?) is hugely different from representing an alleged terrorist who reportedly confessed to his involvement with the Boston Marathon bombing, and a multiple kidnapper who obviously held three women against their wills for years.