Hilzoy seems to be determined to make sure Steve Benen doesn't come across as the dumbest blogger Washington Monthly has in its stable. In this long post about abortion and the murder of Dr. Tiller, we are presented with this gem from some dimwit named Athenae:
For eight f*cking years anybody to the left of Pinochet had to kick back and watch while sensible centrists and the Coalition of the Involuntarily Committable got together and raped the country and f*cked up the whole world. For eight f*cking years we were told that marching in the streets with giant puppets was the most horrific form of treason imaginable, was demoralizing our troops and hurting the debate and making the baby Pope Benedict cry. Not once did I ever in that time hear Megan McArdle or any of her other sensible friends discuss how maybe, just maybe, President Bush and his administration had PUSHED us to the edge, where we HAD to make those puppets because we felt the political process was closed to us.
That's right. The Bush Administration PUSHED 'em to the edge... And AS WE ALL KNOW, the only response serious-minded citizens have to having the political process CLOSED TO THEM is to made giant paper-mache heads.
To which Hilzoy adds:
That is, in fact, the way I felt for much of those eight years. And I had a lot more excuse for feeling that the political process had been closed to me: after all, my candidate for President actually won the election in 2000, for all the good it did him. And yet, somehow, I managed not to kill anyone. Funny thing, that.
So giant paper-mache head making kept Hilzoy from murder and mayhem for eight long years. Sounds like the basis for a new Obama Administration anti-violence initiative to me.
Update: Athenae seems to think I've aggressively missed the point of her sarcasm. I don't think that is the case at all. I would suggest that I got the point and found it to be self-pitying, self-indulgent and stupid despite the sarcasm. Hence the mockery. There, athenae, now you've had it explained for you.
My guess is that the author "managed" not to kill anyone because he's a f***ing pantywaist who thinks marching around with puppets is an effective method of striking a blow for democracy.
Posted by: Jason G. Williscroft | June 02, 2009 at 10:04 AM
Notice the complete lack of attention on the left to the shootings of two US soldiers (one has died) in Little Rock, yesterday.
And the shooter was? Well to paraphrase one of the lefty blogs describing Tiller's murderer: The shooter is just what you'd expect: a muslim convert who's been abroad in Yemen, no less for study of Islam.
Hell the FBI was even watching him.
Posted by: Eric Blair | June 02, 2009 at 10:15 AM
Eric-
Funny how that works, eh?
Posted by: Dennis the Peasant | June 02, 2009 at 10:23 AM
Hilzoy actually is a pantywaist because "he" is a woman.
Have we seen a wave of muslim converts shooting US soldiers in the USA? That'd be news to me. But we have had decades of terrorism directed at doctors like Tiller and their staffs. Here's what I wrote about it Sunday.
It’s terrorism and it will continue I guess until someone shoots Bill O’Reilly, Randall Terry, and James Dobson in both arms (1993 attack on Tiller), bombs their offices and burns them to the ground (1986), blockades their offices with shrieking protesters bellowing death threats (1991), cuts the wires to their office security systems, chops holes in their roofs and plugs up the drainage system, (last month), mounts protests at their churches, homes, and offices complete with 20' billboards of bloody body parts (repeatedly) and finally walks into the vestibules of their respective churches while they’re serving as ushers handing out church bulletins, with their wives upstairs singing in the choir, and shoots them to death, evidently in the face so that witnesses will have to tell the police who the victims are, just like Tiller.
Then maybe, just maybe, the kind of disgusting violent rhetoric these goons use to incite their unhinged followers against doctors like Tiller who perform legal abortions will cease.
Posted by: markg8 | June 02, 2009 at 11:23 AM
Mark-
I do believe there have been a number of domestic terror plots foiled in the U.S. over the past eight or so years, including one here in Central Ohio. All of them involved citizens who were Muslims (and a number of them were converts. Then there was the first attempt on the World Trade Center back in the '90s.
If memory serves, a couple of weeks ago we had progressives/leftists/Democrats mocking attempts at domestic terrorism by four Muslim converts in New York City as the unserious product of a hapless bunch of losers. Remember that?
I'm pro-choice myself, and certainly neither condone the act nor sympathize with the perp, but I cannot help note the double standard being applied to these two particular forms of "domestic terrorism". It really does appear it's more about the politics associated with the doctor and the serviceman than the doctor and the serviceman as human beings. Both are being objectified for the politics of the moment.
Posted by: Dennis the Peasant | June 02, 2009 at 11:44 AM
Mark-
Be careful about calling a woman a pantywaist. It could lead to charges of sexism on your part!
Posted by: Dennis the Peasant | June 02, 2009 at 11:46 AM
I don't equate FBI recruitment of indicted and/or convicted informants and offering them a break on their sentences in return for leading disgruntled dimbulbs into a "plot" wholly ginned by the FBI with the decades long religiously inspired jihad against abortion doctors Dennis. Tiller is the eighth person killed in attacks targeting abortion providers since 1993.
I think you miss the point of Hilzoy's post. Roeder's apologists are making the case that his frustration drove him to it, his family is claiming his abortion angst drove him mad. How many war supporters have been gunned down in politically motivated murders over the Bush years? Can you name any?
Now can we get an apology from everybody who claimed Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano should resign for daring to release a report about rightwing nuts?
Posted by: markg8 | June 02, 2009 at 12:36 PM
"I don't equate FBI recruitment of indicted and/or convicted informants and offering them a break on their sentences in return for leading disgruntled dimbulbs into a "plot" wholly ginned by the FBI with the decades long religiously inspired jihad against abortion doctors Dennis."
Sounds as though the Obama Administration has failed twice over, doesn't it?
It's worth noting that a number of the instances I mentioned didn't have FBI informants leading innocents to their doom. It certainly wasn't the case with the Central Ohio terror plot.
I didn't miss Hilzoy's point at all. I just think it wasn't much of a point. Last week it was Sotomayor. This week it is Tiller. Next week it will be something else. The only thing that won't change is the simple fact that for all the sanctimonious huffing and puffing, it's more about the politics of Tiller's murder than the murder itself.
Me? I'm just looking for some consistency on either side...
Posted by: Dennis the Peasant | June 02, 2009 at 01:44 PM
I think there's plenty of consistency on both sides Dennis. Republicans lie and Democrats counter with the truth. Case in point, leading Republicans howl Sotomayor is a racist who hates whites when as Scotusblog points out:
"other than Ricci, Judge Sotomayor has decided 96 race-related cases while on the court of appeals. Of the 96 cases, Judge Sotomayor and the panel rejected the claim of discrimination roughly 78 times and agreed with the claim of discrimination 10 times; the remaining 8 involved other kinds of claims or dispositions. Of the 10 cases favoring claims of discrimination, 9 were unanimous. (Many, by the way, were procedural victories rather than judgments that discrimination had occurred.) Of those 9, in 7, the unanimous panel included at least one Republican-appointed judge. In the one divided panel opinion, the dissent’s point dealt only with the technical question of whether the criminal defendant in that case had forfeited his challenge to the jury selection in his case. So Judge Sotomayor rejected discrimination-related claims by a margin of roughly 8 to 1."
They call Tiller a murderer who happily aborted babies in the third trimester for any old reason as long as the mother coughed up $5000 while your new girlfriend Hilzoy points out:
"I'm not sure how many doctors still perform late-term abortions in this country -- one and two seem to be the most common estimates. This is, of course, due to the campaign of terrorism that has been waged against them. I cannot imagine the courage it takes to go on doing what you think is right in the face not only of consistent harassment and death threats, but of actual attempts on your life.
Why go on doing it? Here's one reason:
"Sometime early in the 8th month my wife, an RN who at the time was working in an infertility clinic asked the Dr. she was working for what he thought of her discomfort. He examined her and said that he couldn't be certain but thought that she might be having twins. We were thrilled and couldn't wait to get a new sonogram that hopefully would confirm his thoughts. Two days later our joy was turned to unspeakable sadness when the new sonogram showed conjoined twins. Conjoined twins alone is not what was so difficult but the way they were joined meant that at best only one child would survive the surgery to separate them and the survivor would more than likely live a brief and painful life filled with surgery and organ transplants. We were advised that our options were to deliver into the world a child who's life would be filled with horrible pain and suffering or fly out to Wichita Kansas and to terminate the pregnancy under the direction of Dr. George Tiller.
We made an informed decision to go to Kansas. One can only imagine the pain borne by a woman who happily carries a child for 8 months only to find out near the end of term that the children were not to be and that she had to make the decision to terminate the pregnancy and go against everything she had been taught to believe was right. This was what my wife had to do. Dr. Tiller is a true American hero. The nightmare of our decision and the aftermath was only made bearable by the warmth and compassion of Dr. Tiller and his remarkable staff. Dr. Tiller understood that this decision was the most difficult thing that a woman could ever decide and he took the time to educate us and guide us along with the other two couples who at the time were being forced to make the same decision after discovering that they too were carrying children impacted by horrible fetal anomalies. I could describe in great detail the procedures and the pain and suffering that everyone is subjected to in these situations. However, that is not the point of the post. We can all imagine that this is not something that we would wish on anyone. The point is that the pain and suffering were only mitigated by the compassion and competence of Dr. George Tiller and his staff. We are all diminished today for a host of reasons but most of all because a man of great compassion and courage has been lost to the world."
Here's another:
"A routine ultrasound on October 26--meant to be a time of great joy (my best friend came with us to the appointment--revealed terrible news: one of the twins had died, probably about a week before. We went from the ultrasound appointment to my obstetrician's office and were met with even more grim news. My weight had spiked up about 18 pounds, my blood pressure was soaring, and I had protein in my urine.
It turned out that I was in full-blown preeclampsia. I was admitted to the hospital immediately.
After that, everything happened very quickly. I was put on medication (magnesium sulfate) in an attempt to treat the preeclampsia and save the remaining twin until he reached outside-the-womb viability--a mere two weeks away (I was just over 22 weeks pregnant). But I got much worse overnight; my blood pressure couldn't be controlled, I had a massive headache and was vomiting uncontrollably. My kidneys shut down. I was moments away from seizures, coma, and death when the doctors came and told us the bad news: my remaining twin could not be saved. My pregnancy had to be terminated or both the baby and I would die.
You might, Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain, be able to imagine what it felt like to be my husband--to imagine being terrified of losing your children and your wife in one fell swoop. Ms. Clinton, you might be able to imagine lying in the hospital, so sick you barely feel any of what is happening, only knowing that the long-fought-for children you so desperately wanted are now both going to be dead.
Here's the part of the story where choice comes in. I could, of course, have gone through induced labor and delivered my tiny twins. But my blood pressure was hovering around 165/120 (often going higher), even with treatment. Can you imagine what labor would have done to my body with blood pressure that high? My doctor recommended, and I agreed, that I undergo the much less stressful intact dilation and extraction procedure--what the "pro-life" forces often like to call a "partial birth abortion." (...)
As I lay on the gurney, waiting for my procedure to start, I felt a gulf of grief and emptiness the like of which I have never known. I felt abandoned by God. I lay there, crying, alone, surrounded by doctors and nurses. You can't imagine the sadness.
I was lucky. Are you surprised that I would say that? I was lucky because the partial-birth abortion ban was not yet in effect in October of 2004. If it had been, I would have been forced to undergo labor and delivery, no matter the risks to my health, and I might right now be either dead or so brain damaged I would be unable to type this."
And this:
"I also know a woman who had two "partial-birth abortions," or D&Xs (dilation and extraction) as they are more accurately called. My friend Tiffany is a carrier of a terrible genetic abnormality. In addition to other defects, her babies developed with no faces, with no way to eat or breathe. They were doomed. The only way to extract them without hurting her chances of ever having another baby was through a D&X."
And this essay that I will never forget, about a woman whose child died in her womb, and who couldn't find anyone to do a dilation and evacuation, the safest procedure for someone in her condition, because it was too controversial:
"I could feel my baby's dead body inside of mine. This baby had thrilled me with kicks and flutters, those first soft tickles of life bringing a smile to my face and my hand to my rounding belly. Now this baby floated, limp and heavy, from one side to the other, as I rolled in my bed.
And within a day, I started to bleed. My body, with or without a doctor's help, was starting to expel the fetus. Technically, I was threatening a spontaneous abortion, the least safe of the available options.
I did what any pregnant patient would do. I called my doctor. And she advised me to wait. (...)
On my fourth morning, with the bleeding and cramping increasing, I couldn't wait any more. I called my doctor and was told that since I wasn't hemorrhaging, I should not come in. Her partner, on call, pedantically explained that women can safely lose a lot of blood, even during a routine period.
I began calling labor and delivery units at the top five medical centers in my area. I told them I had been 19 weeks along. The baby is dead. I'm bleeding, I said. I'm scheduled for a D&E in a few days. If I come in right now, what could you do for me, I asked.
Don't come in, they told me again and again. "Go to your emergency room if you are hemorrhaging to avoid bleeding to death. No one here can do a D&E today, and unless you're really in active labor you're safer to wait.""
Why didn't her own Ob/Gyn do the procedure?
"I can't do these myself," said my doctor. "I trained at a Catholic hospital."
George Tiller endured decades of terrorism to help women like these, women in unspeakably awful situations whom very few people were willing to help, given the price domestic terrorists had decided that anyone who helped them would have to pay. Now he has given his life."
Yeah Dennis there's an amazing amount of constistency. The only problem is there aren't very many of us willing to cross over to the other side and discuss these issues with each other. If somebody had told those stories to Roeder maybe he wouldn't have been so excited about murdering Tiller.
Posted by: markg8 | June 02, 2009 at 02:25 PM
And really you think it's just politics? A friend of mine had a medical problem and one of her options was a hysterectomy. She tried to discuss this with her ob/gyn and was told she was no longer welcome as a patient because it was a Catholic institution. Seriously. She now has drive 30 miles to downtown Chicago to see her new one.
Posted by: markg8 | June 02, 2009 at 02:34 PM
I guess the old adage, "idle hands are the devil's playground" is true after all. I just never expected it to include paper-mache giant head making. Any port in a storm I suppose.
This stuff is getting so predictable. A brutal murder takes place and some folks only see some political aspect to it. It's sad really, that a man's life and death would be turned into a political beanbag.
Posted by: Allen | June 02, 2009 at 03:27 PM
How dare anyone politicize the political assassination of an abortion doctor.
Posted by: markg8 | June 02, 2009 at 05:20 PM
"Notice the complete lack of attention on the left to the shootings of two US soldiers (one has died) in Little Rock, yesterday."
The killer in that case "faces a first-degree murder charge and 15 counts of engaging in a terrorist act*.... The terrorist counts stem from the shots fired at an occupied building."
If only the assassination of one of the few Ob/Gyns in the country engaged in providing legal, highly specialized medically necessary care to his patients, an Ob/Gyn who was previously shot in both arms, who needed federal marshals protection for years because his name was found on an assassination list, and whose clinic was bombed and repeatedly vandalized, counted as much as firing shots at an occupied building.
But it doesn't. Because as long as "you [the assassin] actually think late-term abortion is murder, then the murder of Dr. Tiller makes total sense"; as long as "you think that someone is committing hundreds of gruesome murders a year, and that the law cannot touch him" then "[you] are not morally required to obey an unjust law."
* http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/06/01/arkansas.recruiter.shooting/index.html
** http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/06/the_war_on_the_war_on_abortion.php#_login
Posted by: ema | June 02, 2009 at 07:06 PM
Any bets on ema being one of Amanduh's faithful?
Posted by: just passin by | June 02, 2009 at 08:27 PM
Just Passin By-
I read her blog. Believe me, Ema is most certainly not guilty on that score.
Posted by: Dennis the Peasant | June 02, 2009 at 08:35 PM
My bust. Ema, I'm sorry I called you an Amanduhite.
Nobody with the USS Clueless on their blog list could be a libtard.
Shooting soldiers pisses me off more then shooting abortion doctors. I don't really care about abortion one way t'other.
The media ignoring another "Religion of Peace" shooter to make their show about a fundie shooter doesn't surprise me in the least, either.
Posted by: just passin by | June 02, 2009 at 10:20 PM
BTW Eric and Dennis, you're wrong again. Kos posted this at noon:
Tue Jun 02, 2009 at 12:08:04 PM PDT
Throw the book at this asshole who shot up an Arkansas recruiting station, killing one soldier straight out of basic training, talking about his experiences to recent recruits.
And like the terrorist down in Kansas, use the criminal justice system to bring them to justice.
The day before he murdered Tiller Roeder was chased away form the clinic where a staffer found him trying to pour epoxy in the door lock, for the second time. When she reported him and his license plate number from the same car he was apprehended in the next day, the FBI told her they couldn't do anything unless and until a grand jury was convened.
Maybe the fucking FBI ought to stop trying to con stoned idiots into blowing synagogues and spend a little more time doing something about insaniacs like this eh?
Posted by: markg8 | June 03, 2009 at 01:30 AM
Shooting soldiers pisses me off more then shooting abortion doctors. I don't really care about abortion one way t'other.
Then why mention he was an abortion doctor?
"Shooting soldiers pisses me off more than shooting doctors" is what you mean to say since "abortion is a non-issue for you".
tyvm, i'll be here all week. try the veal.
Posted by: mdh | June 03, 2009 at 05:21 AM
mdh,
ema's post sounded like the fundie's murder of an abortion doctor wasn't getting any attention, while in my mind the Islamist terrorist attack on soldiers is being ignored for the most part.
In every Islamist terrorist attack in this country, with the exception of the second 9/11 attack, the majority of reporting has the angle that the terrorists were mentally ill; in contrast, fundie terrorist attacks on abortion providers are covered as if there is a secret army of fundies ready to take over the country. The extremist violence is minimized in the case of Islamists and sensationalized in the case of fundies.
In the U.S., violence directed toward abortion providers has killed at least 9 people (1 murder of an abortion provider is not counted as it may have resulted from a robbery)since 1993 ; in the United States and Canada, there have been 17 attempted murders, 383 death threats, 153 incidents of assault or battery, and 3 kidnappings committed against abortion providers.
36 Americans have died in Islamist terrorist attacks since 1993, not including 9/11 itself. I parsed this data from thereligionofpeace.com, and omitted the "honor" killings.
36 vs 9: Yet the bigger threat is brushed aside by "journalists" with an agenda. Both sets of deaths caused by religious extremists since 1993.
I attacked ema b/c she, imo, trivialized the importance of the Islamist attack.
Posted by: just passin by | June 03, 2009 at 01:41 PM
jby citing a racist website like thereligionofpeace.com makes you ignorable, so I think I will. You might as well get your stats from Operation Rescue.
Posted by: markg8 | June 03, 2009 at 03:54 PM
Athenae's right. Your sarcasm meter is set too low, please readjust or don't expect to be taken seriously.
Posted by: dj adequate | June 03, 2009 at 05:54 PM
dj adequate-
Couldn't I just make a giant paper-mache head instead?
Posted by: Dennis the Peasant | June 03, 2009 at 08:49 PM
After all, serious times call for serious measures if you want to be taken seriously.
Posted by: Dennis the Peasant | June 03, 2009 at 08:50 PM
Yeah I guess the only way to get taken seriously these days is to actually shoot somebody.
Posted by: markg8 | June 03, 2009 at 11:58 PM
mark,
1. Learn the definition of the word "racist". You may be aiming at the word "bigoted" instead. You may be aiming at "warmongeringbushhitlerchimpymchaliburton", G*d only knows how you think.
2. Are you going to tell me that thereligonofpeace.com just made up the dates and number of dead AND snuck them into the newspapers I read on those dates? Pretty good backstopping there!
2b. OR were you going to inform me that when a Muslim fundamentalist kills people in the name of G*d, that it was simply a case of mental illness?
3. On the assumption you'll be choosing 2b, here's a hint...I was ridiculing that ignorant and dishonest line of thought in the comment.
4. Or are you taking the example of your Messiah, President Hussein, and just ignoring the religious nature of the latest terrorist attack?
Have a nice day! And THANKS for playing!
Posted by: just passin by | June 04, 2009 at 04:13 AM
A little food for thought from Newsbusters:
At the time of this writing, there are nearly 7,000 references to “George Tiller” in Google News.
There are under 500 for “William Long.
Posted by: just passin by | June 04, 2009 at 04:30 AM
Any whackjob who eats up lies from wingnut websites like Newsbusters quoting some FOX News idiot really shouldn't wonder why he doesn't know what's going on in the world.
Why not do a Google News search yourself jpb? Takes less than a minute. Here's what mine just came up with:
1 – 10 of about 10,985 for George Tiller
1 – 10 of about 76,051 for William Long
Posted by: markg8 | June 04, 2009 at 10:05 AM
Mark,
if you can't parse out facts from opinion, it's no wonder you have the opinions you do.
Newsbusters may stray off the reservation of politically correct thought, but they do provide links to their sources. The Google News numbers were 15% off the numbers I quoted when I looked at them earlier, but in the same proportion.
Now, how about telling me whether
a. thereligonofpeace invented stories of extremist terrorism (considering that I took the number of "honor" killings out of their count)
b. These attacks actually took place, but that religious fanatic terrorists are mentally ill (but only when they are Muslim)
Considering that I have neither justified the murder of Tiller, the abortion doctor, nor tried to claim that terrorism against abortion providers does not exist, it seems to me that your position is that Islamist terrorism does not exist.
Posted by: just passin by | June 04, 2009 at 12:18 PM
Newsbusters doesn't "stray off the reservation of politically correct thought", they make up bullshit or provide links to sources like FOX News that make up bullshit.
How you get from there to assuming that my position "is that Islamist terrorism does not exist" is beyond me. I know victimhood is one of the pillars of the radical right, has been since the civil war, but making up ever easier to refute nonsense about everything from torture to 9/11 to the media coverage these two shootings are getting isn't the way to be taken seriously.
Here's a little research project for you jpb. Let's contrast the number of crimes and harassment committed against people of color who are or could be mistaken for Muslim middle easterners or west asians since 9/11 in this country to the number of crimes and harassment committed by real Islamist terrorists in this country.
I think you'll find a lot more incidents of some poor Hindu 7/11 clerk getting shot in the chest or the Pakistani gas station attendant who got his head caved in my old hometown of Medford NJ for the crime of being brown than you will of incidences like the one in Arkansas.
Posted by: markg8 | June 04, 2009 at 01:15 PM
good job Mark! Try to pin you down on a question and you shift the focus yet again.
Try answering the question. Was this a terrorist attack, or a case of "mental illness"
But as you have shown repeatedly in these comment pages before, you are unable to directly answer any question in which the answer doesn't fall into your "good, postracial, transnational,caring, democrat vs. evil,jingoistic,grasping,white,Republican" bubble.
Posted by: just passin by | June 04, 2009 at 03:49 PM
And speaking of Fox making up stories, let's bat this back and forth;
give me an example of a made up Fox story
(We are not talking about the insanity of some of their commentators, we are talking about stories which were made up)
You go first, I have plenty to bat right back at ya
Posted by: just passin by | June 04, 2009 at 03:56 PM
Can't you two ever play nice?
Posted by: Dennis the Peasant | June 05, 2009 at 12:17 AM
The Google News numbers were 15% off the numbers I quoted when I looked at them earlier, but in the same proportion.
You mean to tell me you actually looked it up at around 4:30am and in the intervening 5+ hours, mostly in the middle of the night, almost 4000 more stories were written about Tiller and another whopping 75000+ were written about Long? Or maybe you mean add another 15% to that "proportionally" so let's say only 3000 more for Tiller and still over 75000 more for Long? Is that what you're really saying?
And no I'm not gonna waste my time looking up FOX quotes. I have better things to do with my time than try to placate a mental defective.
Dennis you need a smarter class of wingnut fan. My cat can make more reasoned arguments than some of these guys and she has a brain the size of brontosaurus.
Posted by: markg8 | June 05, 2009 at 12:53 AM
Marky
Couple of things -
Tiller was killed on 31 May, Long was killed on 2 June.Ever heard of the phrase 'breaking news'.
Let's look at the stories about William Long - from Google News -
First page - 10 stories - 5 were (from the short beginning precis) regarding the lack of attention the Long story got. 1 was regarding an unrelated story - due to the fact that the words 'William' and 'Long' are common words (unlike 'George' and 'Tiller').
Second page - 10 stories - 1 regarding lack of attention, 4 related, 5 unrelated - health care, David Carradine etc
Third page - 9 stories - 1 regarding lack of coverage, 1 related, 7 unrelated
Fourth page - 10 stories - 2 related, 8 unrelated
shit why waste my time - I'll just go to page 20 -
10 stories - not one fucking related story
'George Tiller' on the other hand -
first page - 10 stories 10 hits
second page - shit what do you know - 10 stories - 10 hits - that would be 100 %
third page - 10 stories, 10 hits - I'm batting 100 as you Yanks would say
I'll skip to page 20 - 10 stories - every single one related
Do I need to go on or will you just admit what a turd you've made of yourself right now.
Think you owe just passin by an apology Marky old man.
Posted by: Simon | June 05, 2009 at 09:34 AM
"ema's post sounded like the fundie's murder of an abortion doctor wasn't getting any attention...."
I wasn't clear. The soldier's killer is [correctly, in my opinion] charged with engaging in a terrorist act. The Ob/Gyn's killer, not so much. It's not about the degree of attention/media coverage; it's about a homeland security failure.
"ema...imo, trivialized the importance of the Islamist attack."
With the proviso that, as far as I'm concerned, we're just some silly people on the Internets indulging in a most undignified "My terrorist is bigger than yours!!eleventy11!" discussion:
On an individual level, the deaths of Private Long and Dr. Tiller are equally tragic and important. Two professionals assassinated in broad daylight while engaged in the most mundane of activities (taking a break from volunteer work, and attending church, respectively.)
On an effective act of terrorism level, let's compare and contrast.
Pvt. Long was a recent graduate of the OSUT 14 wks course at Fort Benning in Georgia*. Roughly two classes or ~3,600 soldiers (my lower range estimate for a 6-battalion brigade**) graduate each year, with comparable levels of skill and experience. In terms of terrorist objectives his assassination was not a success. No disruption in the military's ability to function, no effect on the population from an incapacitated military, probably no effect on recruitment levels. [I'm guessing, of course, but it's plausible that for every potential recruit scared away by the killing there's another one even more determined to enlist.]
Dr. Tiller was one of only ~ 3 Ob/Gyns in the country with decades of expertise in providing a highly specialized medical treatment. A 4 year Ob/Gyn residency graduates ~1,060 Ob/Gyns per year***. Even in a fantasy scenario where all the graduates go on to specialize in late therapeutic terminations, it takes an additional 5 years or so just to acquire the basic skill set and experience level to do what Dr. Tiller did in a solo practice. In terms of terrorism his assassination was most effective (and then some). Clinic shut down, patients deprived of specialized medical care, intimidated patients and Ob/Gyns, availability of replacement years away. [I'm aware one of the other two specialists offered to come in part time for now but, since prominent "pro-life" sites are already posting his info and urging supporters to, you know, shut him down, it's not clear how long he'll be around.]
Bottom line: It's not that one act of terrorism is more important than the other. It's that there are highly effective domestic terrorists roaming about and our beloved government overlords have yet to acknowledge that, let alone deal with the situation effectively.
*http://arkansasmatters.com/content/fulltext/?cid=226222
**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Infantry_School
***http://www.acog.org/departments/dept_notice.cfm?recno=1&bulletin=3570 (Table 2)
Posted by: ema | June 05, 2009 at 10:01 AM
Marky
I'm up to page 30 -
'George Tiller' - 10 stories - 10 related to the murder of George Tiller
'William Long' - 10 stories - 0 related related to the murder of William Long
Let's hope a story doesn't break regarding the Williams sisters being involved in a long tennis match or the figures will really get skewed.
PS Marky thanks for the italics. I was thinking about bolding the word 'turd' on my previous comment but after my problems on the last thread you know I didn't want to let that genie out of the bottle again.
Posted by: Simon | June 05, 2009 at 10:43 AM
Ema -
Another way of looking at the issue is -
Tiller was an old, unarmed doctor in a church representing nothing but himself
Long was a soldier of the US Army who was attacked together with another soldier outside a recruting station
Me - I'm generally more frightened of murderers who attack the army.
Hello ? to echo Marky - are there any better libtards out there ?
Posted by: Simon | June 05, 2009 at 11:44 AM
And as we all know Simon conservatives are easily frightened. In this country they just about cleaned out all the gun stores and they couldn't keep enough ammunition on the shelves after Obama was elected.
Long's murder was conducted by a lone killer with evidently little premeditation and no assistance. The police have said as much.
While OTH Tiller's killing was aided and abetted by Operation Rescue. He had their exec director's phone number on the dash of his car when he was arrested, she admitted having many conversations with him recently, not that she could deny it, and from her comments and those of her organization it doesn't appear they did anything but encourage Roeder. They posted Tiller's movements and schedule on their website, and have unceasingly harassed him, phyiscally assaulted him, and harangued him in eliminationist terms for decades to their followers and in the media.
Just the day before Roeder murdered Tiller he was identified along with his getaway car's license number committing a federal crime. When clinic personnel called the FBI they were told nothing could be done unless a grand jury was convened to order his apprehension. That doesn't fly. When a criminal is identified while committing a federal crime, and leaves behind evidence of the crime, it's the FBI's duty to pick him up. Even ex FBI agents said they dropped the ball.
As for your google search lets go back to what jpb wrote 3 days after the attack on the soldiers:
A little food for thought from Newsbusters:
At the time of this writing, there are nearly 7,000 references to “George Tiller” in Google News. There are under 500 for “William Long.
He was flat wrong on that score and a simple test of his simple claim proved it.
The fact that a lot of the hits about the Long story come from whiners who'd like to pretend, or are actually dumb enough to believe, that white Christians are under siege in this country from dark skinned "Islamofascists" doesn't surprise me and their foolishness doesn't particularly interest me.
Don't blame me when the corporate media is preoccupied with disgraced ex-Republican politicians calling Sotomayor a racist while they ignore your pet news story. They ignore ours too. If Matt Drudge doesn't make it a blue light special and FOX doesn't run it 24/7 that's your problem not mine. "Pissed off gunman kills authority figure" sadly isn't exactly a novel headline in this country.
The fact that there's been a three decade long violent religious jihad against doctors who perform legal abortions that has resulted in making the procedures much less accessible to women who need them does interest me. The fact that the FBI blew off a good arrest of Roeder the day before he murdered Tiller and the fact that they aren't rounding up Randall Terry and the rest of those nuts is a story I think is undercovered.
Posted by: markg8 | June 05, 2009 at 01:39 PM
Marky
You said -You mean to tell me you actually looked it up at around 4:30am and in the intervening 5+ hours, mostly in the middle of the night, almost 4000 more stories were written about Tiller and another whopping 75000+ were written about Long?
As it turns out it looks like very few of those 75,000 stories related to William Long at all - they just happened to be stories which contained the words 'William' and 'Long', such as
'Prince William today went for a long royal vacation'
and
'William Shatner's agent admitted today that it had been a long time since the star had been in a good movie'
You quoted those Google News stories numbers like they were gospel from Chomsky without looking at them in any way.Which is why you were wrong on that.
From an analysis of the number of Google News stories (for what that's worth) I think the Tiller story received more attention than the Long story -
'william long murder' - 10,033 stories - but by page 10 most are unrelated
'george tiller murder' - 9,870 stories - by page 10 all still related
So you're wrong on that score.
You say - The fact that a lot of the hits about the Long story come from whiners who'd like to pretend, or are actually dumb enough to believe, that white Christians are under siege in this country from dark skinned "Islamofascists" doesn't surprise me and their foolishness doesn't particularly interest me.
The inflated hits on the Long story were totally unrelated not 'whining' - so you're wrong on that score also.
You say - Long's murder was conducted by a lone killer with evidently little premeditation and no assistance.
'But prior to the shooting, Muhammad had been the subject of a preliminary investigation by the FBI's Joint Terrorist Task Force since his return from Yemen, where he was arrested and had in his possession a false Somali passport..'
Marky let me tell you, when third parties think you might do it, then that is a very high level of premeditation.
Wrong again.
Have you ever watched those gang v cop shows where a police officer is killed ? Suddenly the mayor is on TV, and all cops are taken off their current work and put on to the cop killing. Do you know why that is ? I'll answer my own question as it may be the only way I'll get a sensible answer - it's because any attack on the state is treated very, very seriously as a symbolic matter outside of the facts of the actual crime.
There is no crime more serious.
Too much wrong from you.
Posted by: Simon | June 05, 2009 at 09:21 PM
You quoted those Google News stories numbers like they were gospel from Chomsky without looking at them in any way.Which is why you were wrong on that.
Um no, that would be jpb who breathlessly posted some bullshit by FOX News by way of Newsbusters. I just looked it up using his parameters. You yourself admit after all your pointless research that the numbers are now about even. His numbers were total bullshit from the start using any parameters. You're even making my point for me with your "gang v cop shows where a police officer is killed" analogy. Like I said "Pissed off gunman kills authority figure" sadly isn't exactly a novel headline in this country, it's even a common theme dramatized on teevee. It'd be nice if Law and Order would do a dramatization about an abortion doctor being murdered and the reign of terror these folks have lived under for the last 30 years next season.
And of course the FBI better be looking at a guy who converted to Islam and got thrown out of Yemen for using a fake Somali passport. Stopping by to have a little chat with him to ask him some questions and let him know they had their eye on him would have been a good idea. They also should have arrested the guy who twice poured epoxy into the front door locks of a healthcare clinic in the week before he committed murder. Maybe if they weren't too busy wasting time entrapping goofballs in fake plots to do their jobs right Long and Tiller would be alive today.
From the ABC report:
"At this point it appears that he specifically targeted military personnel, but there doesn't appear to be a wider conspiracy or, at this point in time, any indication that he's a part of a larger group or a conspiracy to go further," Little Rock Police Chief Stuart Thomas said.
Posted by: markg8 | June 06, 2009 at 11:23 AM