Alan K. Henderson's Weblog

Michelle Malkin has the story.

Update: LGF has background on Scott Roeder, who was arrested for the murder.

Update: LGF's Charles Johnson is unhinged. He thinks Operation Rescue bears culpability in the murder:

But as we’ve shown here at LGF, Roeder also posted comments at anti-abortion websites, subscribed to anti-abortion magazines (including one that advocated the murder of doctors who perform abortions), and when he was arrested he had a Post-It note in his car containing the phone number of Operation Rescue. Exactly how do you qualify to have “connections to the pro-life” movement, if this doesn’t do it?

Note to anti-abortion groups: man up and take responsibility for Scott Roeder. He’s one of yours. Obviously, not everyone who belongs to a “pro-life” group will go to such extreme lengths as Scott Roeder apparently did, but it’s long past time for you folks to start dialing down the rhetoric and acting more responsibly — before anyone else is hurt or killed in a shooting or an abortion clinic bombing.

And if you don’t believe this is necessary, here’s a video created by Operation Rescue. The apparent purpose of the video: to encourage the murder of Dr. George Tiller. At one point, an onscreen message says: “Together We Can Put An End To George Tiller, Abortion and These Horrific Crimes”

Following that commentary is the video in question (warning: graphic images of aborted fetuses).

He has a point that the language "put an end to George Tiller" without any added context comes across as sounding like a death threat. But the context of the video is plainly not that. OR's video clearly seeks to convey the message that abortion kills, and that OR seeks new members and petition signatories. Anyone with common sense would grasp that somebody wanting to off an abortionist doesn't issue a recruitment video with a petition advertised at the end; that somebody quietly hires a hitman, or does the job himself. OR director Flip Benham is a colossal PR nightmare, but he does not incite violence.

(Quite frankly I think that videos of living fetuses would be more effective than the dead fetus pics - not grainy hospital scans, but the kind of image quality you find in the still photos in this YouTube video. The strategy should be to demonstrate that the human fetus is a human life.)

Correction: Flip Benham is not the current OR director. Troy Newman is the current president. (Top two officers listed here.) Benham was director from 1994 to date unknown. He is perhaps the organization's most visible spokesman.

FYI, OR's official statement is here.

Labels: Crime