“MLK parade bomber sentenced to 32 years in prison” reports Nikolas K. Geranios of the Associated Press:
SPOKANE, Wash. — A federal judge was not swayed by the last-ditch attempt from an Army veteran with extensive ties to white supremacists to change his guilty plea in a plot to bomb a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade. …
“I am distressed that you appear not the least bit apologetic,” said [U.S. District Court Judge Justin] Quackenbush, as he sentenced Kevin Harpham to 32 years in prison Tuesday. …
The judge said he was perplexed because Harpham was honorably discharged from the Army and had no criminal record, saying the previously law-abiding Harpham seemed to be influenced by a “shrill and caustic and vitriolic” culture fueled by talk media.
Thomas Clouse of The Spokesman-Review quotes this exchange from the sentencing. The bomb, Harpham said, was:
” … just a statement of protest.”
The judge deadpanned: “Protest of what, Martin Luther King Day?”
“No,” Harpham replied, “just these kinds of social concepts, unity, multiculturalism. It was no different than a Christian person out there protesting gay marriage. Except that it was a lot more dangerous, a lot more extreme – just making a statement that people are out there who do not agree with these ideas.”
Some of the people out there who do not agree with those ideas used to read — and write — a series of newsletters for Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas. Over the years, Paul has variously defended, dismissed and disavowed the racist, anti-gay and anti-Israel statements in those newsletters, which featured articles without byline, but under a banner bearing his name.
USA Today’s Jackie Kucinich traces the shifting history of Paul’s explanation for those newsletters, “Paul’s story changes on racial comments“:
Rep. Ron Paul has tried since 2001 to disavow racist and incendiary language published in Texas newsletters that bore his name, denying he wrote them and even walking out of an interview on CNN Wednesday. But he vouched for the accuracy of the writings and admitted writing at least some of the passages when first asked about them in an interview in 1996.
Some issues of the newsletters included racist, anti-Israel or anti-gay comments, including a 1992 newsletter in which he said 95% of black men in Washington “are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.”
Paul told The Dallas Morning News in 1996 that the contents of his newsletters were accurate but needed to be taken in context. Wednesday, he told CNN he didn’t write the newsletters and didn’t know what was in them.
For more background, and examples of some of the hateful content of those newsletters, see:
- James Kirchick: “Angry White Man: The bigoted past of Ron Paul“
- Jonathan Chait: “News Bulletin: Ron Paul Is a Huge Racist“
- Ta-Nehisi Coates: “Ron Paul’s Shaggy Defense“
Millions of people are influenced by the “‘shrill and caustic and vitriolic culture’ fueled by talk media” that Judge Quackenbush described.
A small percentage of them, like Kevin Harpham, become “more extreme” and seek to do violence.
And an even smaller percentage of them decide to run for president.
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