The assassination of George Tiller

Watching the violence-fomenting anti-choice leaders and their acolytes trying to distance themselves from Dr. George Tiller's deliberate execution as he ushered in his church on Sunday morning is quite captivating.

We who know them realize that while they are carefully formulating their "murder is wrong and we disavow it" responses, they are likely so taken with glee that it's hard for them to keep from dancing around their computers.

Those who pretended displeasure at the predictable outcome of their demagoguery are a contemptible lot indeed:

Phill Kline, who used his offices of public trust to vilify and repeatedly unsucessfully prosecute Tiller at every opportunity, is challenging Operation Rescue West's Troy Newman for hypocrite of the year.

Newman himself, who long led the assaults on patients who were attending Tiller's clinic for any purposes, and extended the physical and verbal abuse to elderly female escorts of those poor women. I watched Newman, the "pro-lifer" repeatedly using his "Truth Truck" to physically block the progress of a peaceful peace march, just a few weeks prior to Bush's invasion of Iraq, and blasting the mostly Mennonite marchers with his trumpet so their hymns could not be heard. Newman's crew stalked Tiller's employees at their homes as well. When "alleged" assassin Scott Roeder was apprehended while fleeing from the scene of his crime, he had ORW leader Cheryl Sullinger's phone number on a Post-It on the seat next to him. A coincidence, I'm certain. She is well known as the convicted mastermind of a clinic bombing plot in California.

Not ones to miss an opportunity, ORW fellow travelers, such as the Phelps Family's Westboro Baptist Church choir took time away from their important work of disrupting the military funerals of those killed in Iraq and Afghanistan with their "God Hates Fags" placards. They showed up at a vigil held for George, the evening of his murder. They were joined in celebration by defrocked Wichita "pastor" Mark Holick, who never misses an opportunity to harangue Jews, homosexuals, Muslims, Democrats, liberals, moderates, taxpayes or the 98% of Christians who refuse to ascribe to his particular version of cultist lunacy.

Roeder was a member of the separatist "Freemen" who stood off federal officials at their redoubt in Montana. He did previous Kansas prison time for carting around explosives and fuses in the trunk of his unregistered car, with his intended target never revealed. He consorted nationally with many members of the "Christian" right who, like him, also believed themselves above the law, discussing his enthusiasm for assassination. None ever turned him in, of course. His ex-wife indicates he was mentally ill, but I expect that no one in that crowd thought him at all odd. It's called "shared paranoid disorder" by psychiatrists, who of course, are themselves part of the plot.

Dr. Tiller, who was repeatedly found to be practicing within acceptable and wholly legal limits of practice and who was revered by his patients, had the courage to stand for his convictions to provide services to women. They for instance, might have died had they carried incredibly damaged fetuses to term. Despite having previously been shot in both arms, having had his clinic burned to the ground, tormented by the modern day Inspector Javert-Phill Kline, will be remembered long after the parasites who conned multitudes of the gullible for their widow's mites for their "crusade," have faded into obscurity.