A man recently fired from a Target store barged into the Arkansas Democratic headquarters Wednesday and fatally shot the state party chairman before speeding off in his pickup. Police later shot and killed the suspect after a 30-mile chase.Police identified the suspect as 50-year-old Timothy Dale Johnson of Searcy, a town about 50 miles northeast of Little Rock. They said that moments after the shooting, Johnson pointed a handgun at a worker at the nearby Arkansas Baptist headquarters. An official there said he told the worker, “I lost my job.”

It occurs to me that this killing of Bill Gwatney, head of the Democratic Party of Arkansas, counts as an Assassination.  This is a little odd, because we tend to think of assassinations as being aimed at heads of state — it’s Lincoln – Garfield – McKinley – Kennedy and the misfire at Ford (of all presidents) and Reagan.  And that Archduke whose assassination started World War One, but when you think of it if the assassination of that archduke was enough to set off a world war, the world’s political situation was fragile enough for a “if not one thing than another” situation.

Nonetheless, this distraught individual — reportedly a quiet man who kept to himself a lot and was something of a loner — sought out the head of the Arkansas Democratic Party, and … Assassinated him.  For what grandiose political reason, I do not know — probably shaky reasoning, at best — actually almost certainly shaky reasoning at best.  The reasoning is “undetermined”.  I understand that Gwatney was a relatively well known political figure — former state Senator, as these state party heads tend to be — but who assassinates a party functionary?

It brings me to mind the recent shooting of the Unitarian Church, where a distraught unemployed truck driver at the end of his welfare benefits, and a massive fan of various talk radio programs — and here I note specifically Michael Savage — hated the Liberals and Homosexuals and took it out on that church.  That is an act of Terrorism, and two makes for a disturbing sign.

I point out Michael Savage because it’s impossible for me now  not to listen to his vitrol and allusions to what must be done to “Liberals” without thinking about that Unitarian Church shooting.  Yes, I know Michael Reagan waxed poetic on his desire to kill a particular 9/11 Truther and wants to summarily kill Palestinian babies, but Savage gets the honor of being the heir apparent to the legacy of Father Coughlin.

Anyway, the local paper recently published some letters from Unitarians which I knew would garner a response such as this:

  With the recent church shooting by a “conservative,” I have noticed a surge of angry liberals attempting to blame conservatives for all that is wrong in the world. The truth is, there are good and bad people of all stripes. I read plenty opinion articles in The Oregonian written by liberals that I would consider angry and prejudiced. And some of the most hate-filled radio can be heard on Air America.      
        As a former Democrat, I would ask that these people look at their own sins before they start casting stones at others.
        MARK TURNER

 All very interesting.  Pox on both their houses, ye say?  Actually I think Liberal Elitism falls more in the lines of a sad forlorn pity and a thumping of some sense of Superiority.

Anyway, two times — unless you want to put a certain conspiracy tinge on the Anthrax threats of 2001, and a conspiracy tinge is warranted in that case, just perhaps not that conspiracy tinge, in which case it would be three times, and that makes for a hefty lunge time besides– does that make a trend?

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