When it was announced the clinic would not be opening. This is exactly what the perpetrator and his advocates and sympathizers wanted, and this is the very definition of terrorism, and the relative silence from our leaders beyond the intial reaction is downright defeaning.

The whole response to this has been something akin to almost defeatist apologism, about how this was a tragic, unforseen event. The response not only hasn't seemed to acknowledge that this was everything but unforseen, but it also almost takes the agency away from the culture that allows this by chalking this up as an 'isolated event' or a 'lone gunman'. Even conservative columnist Kathleen Parker acknowledges that portrait of Roeder as simply some crazy, lone gunman doesn't exactly do the description of the motives of the murder justice. She's entirely wrong that the problem of the Republican Party is not the message but the messenger, but even in her relative incoherence, she notices a problem, and that's quite an achievement for them, these days.

standards really did get lowered to the subfloor in the Bush years, then.

Here's a call for action from over at Digby's place:
Press conference 1 PM, Thursday, to announce details how Pro-life groups can derail Sotomayor, and root out hypocrisy in pro-life ranks.

Also: Emergency Pro-life leadership training to be held in DC, June 12-14, with Randall Terry, Dr. Alan Keyes, Norma McCorvey, and Fr. Norman Weslin. Pro-abortion activists threaten to disrupt meeting.

If I had the money to get to DC, damn straight I'd be trying to sabotage their "training" meeting.

Limburger cheese, overage tomatoes, eggs kept outside for a week past their sell-by dates ... oh, hail yes, I can think of ammunition. Projectile vomit would be good too but I don't want to have to get that close to these perverts.

From The Secularist's Corner at WaPo:
Dr. George R. Tiller, the Kansas physician who was shot and killed because he performed abortions, was buried Saturday from the church where he was murdered and the family announced Monday that his clinic will be closed permanently. Who says that violence doesn’t work? Now women not only in Kansas but in many surrounding states will be deprived of the choices that Tiller gave his life to provide. It’s no surprise that some anti-abortion extremists gathered a few blocks away and that one held up a sign saying, “God Sent the Shooter.” What is far more disturbing is that there were almost no prominent Kansas politicians at the funeral (including Kathleen Sibelius, the pro-choice former Kansas governor who is now Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Obama administration). The absence of politicians, including many who are pro-choice, speaks volumes about the degree to which abortion, and doctors who provide abortion services, have been demonized in this country. In this climate, do you think that there is any real possibility of pro-choice and anti-choice forces finding the “common ground” to which President Obama referred in his commencement speech at Notre Dame?

One obvious difficulty is that so many people who want to recriminalize abortion are also opposed to contraception and sex education—the obvious tools for reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies (and therefore abortions). But I think there is a larger problem, symbolized by the unwillingness of politicians to show their faces at the funeral of a man who was killed for providing legal medical services to desperate women. Even though these public officials, like Sibelius, are pro-choice, they don’t want to associate themselves publicly with anyone who makes choice possible. While abortion has remained legal, the anti-choice forces have succeeded in making abortion socially disreputable. They have made practicing physicians afraid to perform abortions, and medical students are now reluctant to learn how to terminate pregnancies.

One of the ways in which the anti-choice forces have succeeded is by labeling themselves “pro-life”—thereby promoting the idea that those who support keeping abortion legal and available are “anti-life.” I think that all pro-choice politicians should stop referring to anti-abortion crusaders as “pro-life.” By accepting the language of the opposition, pro-choice Americans have already given a victory to those who harass women and doctors for exercising their right. Every pro-choice politician in Kansas who didn’t show up at Dr. Tiller’s funeral should be ashamed of himself or herself.

Time's come again, my friends. Gotta stand up for something or you'll get run over by everything.