WaPo Columnist Likens Suicide Pilot to Tea Partier (Corrected)

Earlier today a man named Joseph Stack flew a small plane into an IRS building in Texas, killing himself; authorities say that two people were critically injured and a body has been found, though it’s unclear if it’s the pilot’s body or someone else.

Allahpundit catches Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart comparing the pilot to a Tea Party activist. Writes Capehart:

Joseph Stack was angry at the Internal Revenue Service, and he took his rage out on it by slamming his single-engine plane into the Echelon Building in Austin, Texas. We now know this thanks to the rather clear (as rants go) suicide note Stack left behind. There’s no information yet on whether he was involved in any anti-government groups or whether he was a lone wolf. But after reading his 34-paragraph screed, I am struck by how his alienation is similar to that we’re hearing from the extreme elements of the Tea Party movement.

One inconvenient fact: Stack was all sorts of crazy and his hatreds were rather, um, bipartisan. In addition to loathing the IRS, unions, and GM executives, Stack’s suicide note indicates that he hated big drug companies, the Catholic Church, organized religion, George W. Bush, and capitalism.

Meanwhile, The Hill reports that Texas Democratic congressman Lloyd Doggett has issued a statement, in which it sure seems like he’s trying to make the point the Washington Post columnist made without explicitly saying it:

“Like the larger-scale tragedy in Oklahoma City, this was a cowardly act of domestic terrorism … Stack’s apparent website message reflects the steadily increasing flow of ‘the government is out to get me’ paranoia.”

Correction: This item originally incorrectly reported there were no reports of critical injuries.

WaPo Columnist Likens Suicide Pilot to Tea Partier (Corrected)

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