Provacateur: Fred Phelps Weighs In on the Gifford Shooting

Every media jack-off in the country seems to be looking for his moment in the wake of the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gifford, but pride of place has to go to the Very Reverend Fred Phelps, who has announced plans to picket the funeral of the nine-year old girl who died in the line of fire:

The Left does some truly despicable things in this world, but this is a new low for Democrats.

Former three-time Democrat gubernatorial candidate Fred Phelps Jr. (commonly called just “Fred Phelps”) and his Westboro Hate Group have announced plans to disrupt the funeral of 9 year-old shooting victim Christina Greene.

Christina was murdered by Jared Lee Loughner yesterday in his assassination attempt on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. The little girl was born on September 11th, 2001, so her parents have been cursed with a horrific trifecta of high profile trauma: their daughter born on the worst day in our generations’ lives, their daughter murdered in an assassination attempt on a member of Congress, and Democrat Fred Phelps aiming his hate machine at their family during their daughter’s funeral.

Democrat Phelps (an enormous supporter of Al Gore’s, though the media conveniently leaves off that he’s a Democrat and instead likes to imply he’s a conservative, which he is not…he’s a Democrat, and ran repeatedly on the Democrat ticket unsuccessfully for several elected offices) disrupted the funeral of Elizabeth Edwards last month, because it is what he does.

On a day when a family is hurt the most it could possibly imagine being hurt, this horrible man makes things just a little worse for all involved.

We've been hearing a lot about "vitriol" and the " political climate" that contributed to the deaths of six people and the permanent disabling of a member of Congress. I would hope some of these earnest chin-pullers would reflect on how American law, society and culture ca. 2011 seems better able to protect the rights of Fred Phelps, than it is able to protect those of Christina Greene and her family. That has contributed a lot more to the "climate" than some silly Sarah Palin campaign graphic.

Like Laughner, everyone tries to dismiss Phelps as a nut, a loon. Sorry, but I don't think it's that easy to dismiss him. The man may be scum, but he is scum with a following, a ready-made media platform, and a serious First Amendment case pending before the US Supreme Court. Crazy he's not. Neither was Laughner. He may have been confused, his thoughts muddled; but he had a plan, and a mission, and he carried them both out to their bitter end. That's not crazy; that's evil, plain and simple.

Politics and mass movements have long attracted their share of misfits and losers. Radical politics takes those losers and cranks them up to eleven. Many of them remain trapped in obscurity. But, a chosen few find the immortality they seek. Some find themselves, as if chosen by Fate, at the exact street corner where the Archduke's car paused after making a wrong turn. Some manage to return from their outlaw existence to live a modicum of bourgeois respectability, even hosting dinners where future presidents make their political debut. And, some even manage, against all odds, to seize the commanding heights where they can inflict their sociopathy on nations, rather than their friends and neighbors.

So, yeah, I'd say there was something in the political climate that contributed to the events of last Saturday. It's a political climate where the best educated among us seem unable and unwilling to see the difference between a fundamentally decent person like Sarah Palin and a certifiable member of the lunatic fringe like Jared Laughner. (and isn't it funny how all of our modern-day Edward R Murrows couldn't tell us for hours whether Gifford was dead or alive, whether there was a "second shooter," or how many dead and wounded there were; but they knew instantly that the shooting was Sarah Palin's fault?) In an environment like that, every jerk with a gun and a used-bookstore copy of the Communist Manifesto becomes as important and impactful as one of the leading voices in the Republican Party.