Meet Joe Stack

Next time someone puts together one of those internet pass-alongs about how confused America is because it's the only country where we throw out food while millions starve and on and on, please remember to add that Joe Stack, the nutball who flew his plane into the IRS office building in Austin Texas so he could make his final stupid statement about how horrible it is to have to pay taxes and all, had homes in Austin and San Marcos, Texas. And a plane, for crying out loud.

Man, you talk about the oppression of the underprivileged. Two homes and an airplane, and he gripes about some 1986 tax law that makes it tough to be a self-employed computer guy.

Oh, the humanity.

He burned down his house, leaving his now-widowed wife and his daughter without a place to live, and then he flew his plane into the IRS office, killing one person and injuring others.

All over his taxes.

And so of course, leave it to brand-new Senator Scott Brown (R, MA), upon whose office door the paint has not even dried yet, to come up with the stupidest statement since "Mission Accomplished." FOX News trotted him out on the afternoon of this copycat kamikaze attack, and for once, Scotty did not offer his daughters up for any would-be swains out there in cableland. He didn't have time, since he had to say this about the Stack attack:

"Well it's certainly tragic and I feel for the families obviously being affected by it," Brown began.

And I don't know if it's related, but I can just sense not only in my election, but since being here in Washington, people are frustrated. They want transparency, they want their elected officials to be accountable and open and talk about the things that are affecting their daily lives. So I'm not sure that there's a connection, I certainly hope not. But we need to do things better.


FOX host Neil Cavuto: Um, you know invariably people are going to look at this and say, well, that's where some of this populist rage gets you. [At this point, footage of the building IRS building in Austin appears on the right of the screen.] Isn't that a bit extreme?


Brown: Well, yeah, of course it's extreme. You don't know anything about the individual. He could have had other issues, certainly. No one likes paying taxes, obviously. But the way we're trying to deal with things and have been in the past, at least until I got here is, there's such a logjam in Washington. And people want us to do better. They want us to help solve the problems that are affecting Americans in a very real way. [Here, the display zooms back to just Cavuto and Brown.] And I think we, I'm hopeful that we can do that, with a lot of the things that are coming forward. At least what I'm hearing through, and speaking with my colleagues this seems to be a diff... feel there's kind of a message that was sent with my election, the fact that I was elected by a substantial margin taking the former Ted Kennedy's seat. They want difference up here and I'm hopeful that's going to happen.

You really have to hand it to this joker Brown. At least, you have to hope he's joking. Yes, here he is, taking "the former Ted Kennedy's seat." Well-spoken, clean-favored and imperially slim. Rationalizing that the actions of this sad madman in Texas might reflect the sense of even some of the people is almost that sad.