9th Circuit: Ok To Threatem To Kill President

I disagree with this ruling. From The LA Times: A La Mesa man who posted racial epithets and a call to "shoot" Barack Obama on an Internet chat site was engaging in constitutionally protected free speech, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in overturning his criminal conviction.
Walter Bagdasarian was found guilty two years ago of making threats against a major presidential candidate in comments he posted on a Yahoo.com financial website after 1 a.m. on Oct. 22, 2008, as Obama's impending victory in the race for the White House was becoming apparent. Bagdasarian told investigators he was drunk at the time.
A divided panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that conviction Tuesday, saying Bagdasarian's comments were "particularly repugnant" because they endorsed violence but that a reasonable person wouldn't have taken them as a genuine threat.
The observation that Obama "will have a 50 cal in the head soon" and a call to "shoot the [racist slur]" weren't violations of the law under which Bagdasarian was convicted because the statute doesn't criminalize "predictions or exhortations to others to injure or kill the president," said the majority opinion written by Judge Stephen Reinhardt.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/07/online-call-to-shoot-obama-was-free-speech-not-a-crime-appeals-court-rules.html
There is a difference between free speech and threatening a president or politician. I don't care if the president is Obama or the next GOP president. Further, take it down to the state level and look at all the death threats GOP: governors have had to deal with from liberals.
To say a threat against a politician is free speech, if this holds true, means it will be open season on politicians of either party with no repercussions..