We know that Joe Stack is a killer.
He intentionally flew a plane into an IRS office building in Texas, filled with people.
Since Stack's kamikaze mission on Thursday morning, the race is on to define what sort of nutjob Stack was. Was he a crazed Right-wing loon or a crazed Left-wing loon?
The liberal media are portraying him as your run-of-the-mill teabagger -- dangerous, disgruntled, racist, and violent.
Those on the Right are pointing out that Stack's suicide note, actually more of a manifesto, incorporates the Left's talking points.
From The Smoking Gun, here's Stack's screed.
Also from The Smoking Gun, a screen grab of the front page of Stack's website, which he backed up Tuesday afternoon, is here.
David Freddoso, The Washington Examiner, writes that the Mainstream Media are in "denial over IRS bomber's left-wing discontent."
Freddoso details how those in the lib media rushed to characterize Stack as a Right-wing nutjob spawned by the Tea Party Movement. On radical Left-wing websites, Stack was referred to as the "Terror Bagger."
It's disgusting that these Leftists jump on this crime committed by an individual as an opportunity to disparage an entire group of patriotic, concerned American citizens.
Stack's manifesto isn't easily defined.
The tirade posted Thursday on a Web site registered in Stack's name began: "If you're reading this, you're no doubt asking yourself, `Why did this have to happen?"'
He recounted his financial reverses, his difficulty finding work in Austin, and at least two clashes with the IRS, one of them after he filed no return because, he said, he had no income, the other after he failed to report his wife Sheryl's income.
He railed against politicians, the Catholic Church, the "unthinkable atrocities" committed by big business, and the government bailouts that followed. He said he slowly came to the conclusion that "violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer."
According to California state records, Stack had a troubled business history, twice starting software companies in California that ultimately were suspended by the state's tax board, one in 2000, the other in 2004. Also, his first wife filed for bankruptcy in 1999, listing a debt to the IRS of nearly $126,000.
The blaze at Stack's home, a red-brick house on a tree-lined street in a middle-class neighborhood six miles from the crash site, caved in the roof and blew out the windows.
Elbert Hutchins, who lives one house away, said the house caught fire about 9:15 a.m. He said a woman and her daughter drove up to the house before firefighters arrived.
"They both were very, very distraught," said Hutchins, a retiree who said he didn't know the family well. "'That's our house!' they cried. 'That's our house!'"
Why the rush to politicize this horrible incident?
Why the spin? Why label Stack as anything other than a criminal, a killer?
Stack is not representative of Right-wingers or Left-wingers.
I think responsibility for Stack's actions lies with him, not the Right or the Left.
Stack choose to do terrible things. Blame him.
Don't use Stack's crimes to demonize anyone other than Stack.
I hope that people on both sides of the political divide can be level-headed enough to agree that Stack is not the creation of one side or the other.
Using this for political gain is pathetic.
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