• I got to the IRS bombing news late (that is, I heard about it during the day, but didn't see any coverage until local and national news tried to spoil my digestion that evening), so I didn't see the hysterical Is It Terrism coverage until after it wasn't. When, as you know, it became Just A Crazy Guy Did Something Crazy After Fighting With His Wife story. Stack's "rambling" 3000-word web posting (roughly one Douthat Month, to provide some scale) was more referenced than read from, of course. That he'd had "disagreements" with the IRS just sorta laid there, as though We All Understand The Motive, Huh? Even If He Took It Too Far.
And I'm sure I speak for dozens of Americans when I say, "Could you just make up your fucking minds, please?" Guy with political agenda crashes private plane into government building? Disgruntled. Guy with political agenda lights his Fruit of the Looms on an airliner? Two-week news cycle about the Obama administration's ineffective approach to terrorism.
(Two bets Vegas won't cover: that it will be blamed on Obama, in some circles, and that they'll be roundly ignored by the sort of people who man our teleprompters and don't want to wind up waiting in security lines before boarding their corporate jets.)
• Meanwhile, if there was some reference to the ease with which Stack got away with this I musta missed it.
In other words, if it's pants-fouling terrifying when a Nigerian does it, but the tension eases when it's just some Caucasoid maniac with an IRS beef, then your former argument is defunct. Otherwise, it's the exact same fucking story, and Stack's motivation is irrelevant.
• Forget it, Jake, it's Olympic Coverage Syndrome:
"I knew Joe had a hang-up with the I.R.S. on account of them breaking him, taking his savings away,” said Jack Cook, the stepfather of Mr. Stack’s wife, in a telephone interview from his home in Oklahoma. “And that’s undoubtedly the reason he flew the airplane against that building. Not to kill people, but just to damage the I.R.S.”
The MSM. Objectively Pro-terrorist since 2001.
3 comments:
I am objectively pro-terrorist and have avoided all press accounts by a) not watching television and b) living in a foreign country whose language I barely speak. Nevertheless, the observation about the private jet is the only coherent thing anyone has said about this crash, but it does make you seem to be a growling dog.
My favorite part of the article is the paragraph right before the one you quoted:
But in place of the typical portrait of a terrorist driven by ideology, Mr. Stack was described as generally easygoing, a talented amateur musician with marital troubles and a maddening grudge against the tax authorities.
Are people getting their "typical portrait of a terrorist" from Captain America comic books?
I... just... what terrorist HASN'T been an otherwise normal, unassuming person who happens to have a maddening grudge against (insert group here)?
What I'd like to see are some international comparators for this story and similar Americana.
How often in other countries do disgruntle taxpayers crash planes into or plant bombs in buildings housing tax authorities (interestingly, the South Austin IRS building was nearly bombed several years ago)?
How often in other countries do tenured-deny professors sit in on deparment meetings and then open fire?
How often in other countries do protestors brandish placards reading, We came unarmed THIS time?
In other words, just how insane is the United States?
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