Again, that's ludicrous. And, quite honestly, offensive. It's not racism to suggest that, if an actor on a hit TV show is being recast (again, for any reason), the obvious pool or replacements would be actors of the same race.

If Sandra Oh quit "Grey's Anatomy" tomorrow, would it be racist to speculate that an Asian-American actress would brought on to replace her? Of course not.

The fact is that Rhimes' attempts to turn homophobia around and make it racism offended a lot of people. Did she understand that?

"I do now," she said.

But, she insisted, the unfounded rumors of LaSalle replacing Washington were "as disturbing as the entire incident that happened for T.R. and Isaiah."

To make this clear, unfounded rumors were "as disturbing" to her as actual events involving Washington's homophobic slurs.

What makes that even harder to believe is that Rhimes didn't ever come out with any sort of statement decrying the homophobia — she issued a press statement decrying the racism that wasn't really racism.

Doesn't sound much like she considered the former "as disturbing" as the latter, does it?

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E-mail: pierce@desnews.com