JackRiddler wrote:jingofever wrote:Here's What's Insane: LOTS Of People Are Defending Joseph Andrew Stack:We didn't think we were being remotely controversial earlier when we characterized Joseph Andrew Stack's manifesto as insane.
Well, LOTS of people disagree, and if you look in the comments of that post -- or in our inbox -- you'll find plenty of Stack fans out there.
Anger at the IRS and the bailouts holds tremendous resonance, clearly, if even a suicide plane bomber isn't seen as "insane" by plenty of folks.
Such is the climate of American politics right now.
Seriously: When was it different?
It hasn't been. This was the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the story about the crash. The myopia and amnesia involved in that Biz Insider quote boggles the mind.
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/09/13/us/crash-white-house-overview-unimpeded-intruder-crashes-plane-into-white-house.html?pagewanted=1
New York Times wrote:September 13, 1994
CRASH AT THE WHITE HOUSE: THE OVERVIEW
CRASH AT THE WHITE HOUSE: THE OVERVIEW; Unimpeded, Intruder Crashes Plane Into White House
By MAUREEN DOWD,
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12— Shortly before 2 A.M. today, a small red-and-white plane flew low over 17th Street in the heart of the capital's downtown, banked left in a U-turn near the Washington Monument, and headed straight toward the President's bedroom in the White House.
No one tried to stop it.
Administration officials, who pieced together the flight path, said that the Secret Service agents stationed outside the South Portico had only seconds to scramble out of the way as the two-seat, propeller-driven Cessna 150, its power apparently shut off and only its wing lights on, came straight at them.
Gliding over the treetops, the Cessna passed the fountain and the red cannas blooming on the South Lawn, bounced off the grass just short of the White House, crashed through the branches of a magnolia tree planted by Andrew Jackson and came to rest in a crumpled heap two stories below the Clintons' unoccupied bedroom.
President Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton and their daughter, Chelsea, were sleeping across Pennsylvania Avenue at Blair House, the guest house for visiting dignitaries, while repairs were being made to the ventilation system in the White House residence. The Clintons moved back into the White House today.
The authorities said the plane had been stolen and the pilot was Frank Eugene Corder, a 38-year-old truck driver from Maryland. His relatives said he had struggled with vertiginous moods, alcohol, a drug conviction, financial problems, the recent rupture of his third marriage and the death of his father.
Associates said that Mr. Corder, who was killed in the crash, even told a friend last year that he felt so hopeless he might fly a plane on a suicide mission to the White House. That could not be confirmed...