I just got a message:
I am [name redacted]: I am a big DFLer, who was a key player in our 2008 legislative landslide, and who is working on one of the front-running DFL gubernatorial campaigns. I am on a first-name basis with every single DFL leader; I am welcomed into every DFL legislator’s and candidate’s office with my first name. I am, in DFL terms, the shizzle.
I hate you, Merg, and I am going to kill you; I am going to shoot you in the face as your friends and relatives look on in mute horror. And then I’m going to steal a helicopter and drop a huge firebomb on the Tea Party, killing all you Teabagger wingnuts.
By the way, hundreds of my public-employee union friends helped me write this email, and want you to know they’ll be there to defile the corpses afterward.
Please don’t print my name.
Since this key DFL player (seriously! That’s what his message said!) asked me not to print his name, I must respect his wishes.
But wow – it’s a threat! Honest! From someone claiming to be a huge DFL organizer! At the head of an angry mob!
Wow.
So will the DFL and all liberals repudiate this violent threat? Or do they approve of death threats?
Hey, if Andy Birkey can impugn an entire movement based on his blithe assurance that a crank caller claimed to be a key Tea Partier, really, what’s the problem with the above?
[Note to the dense; the above is pure satire; unlike Steny Hoyer, Reps. Lewis and Cleaver, I make no claim that these slandrous claims are true. And unlike Andy Birkey, I’m not going to insult your intelligence by asking you to generalize about an entire party, union or movement based on – let’s be bluntly honest – transparent bullshit).
You better hope David Hanners doesn’t come calling. . .
hope David Hanners doesn’t come calling
Every day, in every way.
I thought Berg was the shizzle. Can there be more than one?
I was wondering what Andy Stern would help organize after his sudden resignation.
” I am going to kill you; I am going to shoot you in the face as your friends and relatives look on in mute horror.”
My reply – Now you’re talking! Better get her done before the medication kicks in. Hope for luck, ’cause you’re really going to need it!!!!!
Or maybe I should call the MSM and tell them I have received no less than 15 of these threats just this morning. I can’t prove it, but surely they’ll know it’s true because I said so.
Since when did AngryClown start calling you Merg?
Very real left on right violence: An aide to Bobby Jindahl had her leg broken outside a fundraising event in New Orleans by a group of five thugs. Lefty protestors had been outside the event.
JP,
We don’t know for sure that it was left on right.
Although I have a piece coming out tomorrow on the subject.
Mitch: I realize you relish in finding reason to criticize my writing, but the word “threat” has been used by every media outlet that has covered this issue including the local affiliate for Fox:
http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/news/minn.-afscme-chapter-receives-threatening-messages-april-14-2010
http://wcco.com/local/afscme.profane.voicemail.2.1634665.html
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/04/14/tax-threats/?refid=0
In each report, a connection to the Tea Party is made.
I would also note that I have been the only reporter to publish the name of the man suspected of making the calls.
I’ll look forward to your “Fresh Fisk” or whatever you call it taking these yellow journalists to task.
way to many co-inkidinks mitch.
Andy,
As I pointed out in the response to the identical comment at the Mindy, I’ve complimented your writing when called for. And I call sloppy reporting for what it is.
I don’t care if news organizations call something a “threat” if it is, by any available evidence, not a threat. If that’s what they did.
But I checked out all three of the links you sent. None of them call it a threat. Some of them say AFSCME said it was a “threat”. Bit of a difference there.
And while the lefty CW says Fox New Network is slanted right, that is not true of their local newsroom.
The “connection”, to the extent it’s made, is the most tenuous guilt by association imaginable.
Oh, yeah – and I asked the people who organized the Tea Party today. NONE of them had heard of the guy.
Cool, Mitch takes Andy to task. Well done.