Heartland Values

Headline in the Wichita edition of Variety: Hix Nix Dox Stix.

George Tiller, a Wichita doctor who was one of the few doctors in the nation to perform late-term abortions, was shot to death on Sunday as he attended church, city officials in Wichita said.

....

Wichita police said that the shots were fired from a handgun in the church lobby during the morning service. The authorities gave few details, but said they were searching for a powder blue Taurus made in the 1990s that had been seen leaving shortly after the shooting. They said witnesses had described seeing a white man departing.

Awesome. Ordinarily you'd just assume it was one of Fred Phelps' merry band of inbred toads, but that bunch barely has the brains among them to work a placard at a soldier's funeral, much less a church assassination and a gitaway car. This crime is just sad and awful, as are its perpetrators and supporters, as is our inability to have a more constructive conversation about this issue.

It's revolting to think that, at a practical level, anti-abortion protesters have been at least as effective in their guerrilla tactics as they have been in their tedious attempts to reverse Roe v. Wade, which may be about #100 in terms of practical importance of issues that are affecting their lives, especially in the vaunted heartland.

The smart kids are leaving and never looking back; the dumb ones are staying to knock each other up, work at either Wal-Mart or the feedlot, and get hooked on crank. The handful of doctors who haven't yet been terrorized away from performing an entirely legal medical procedure shouldn't even be on their list of concerns. But when one major political party continues to indulge this violent, reactionary nonsense it shouldn't be a surprise. This is the harvest they've actively cultivated for decades.