Oh, Shoot. He Has a Sense of Humor.
A very brief Gene Pool today. It is of dubious significance and of challengeable taste, but it makes a point you are likely to get nowhere else in the maelstrom of the post-event pearl-clutching and navel-gazing and conspiracy mongering. (And yes, I am weary of and embarrassed by all the over-fevered, on-the-scene exclusive reports from coddled media elites who hid under tables as nothing truly scary happened. These people should have a talk with their colleagues in war zones.)
Anyway, the point you are not likely to hear: The assailant was not a typical sullen, despondent would-be assassin. He was cheerful. He was articulate. He had a good sense of humor. You have to read the parts of his “manifesto” that didn’t get a lot of ink or air play.
Cole Allen, a mechanical engineer, computer scientist, part-time teacher and video-game developer, wrote this before his assault and set it to email out to friends and relatives ten minutes before he tried to charge into the ballroom. Remember, this is a man who knew he would likely be killed or maimed and certain to be imprisoned for much or all of the rest of his life. From his email:
“Hello everybody!
“So I may have given a lot of people a surprise today. Let me start off by apologizing to everyone whose trust I abused. I apologize to my parents for saying I had an interview without specifying it was for ‘Most Wanted.’ I apologize to my colleagues and students for saying I had a personal emergency (by the time anyone reads this, I probably most certainly DO need to go to the ER, but can hardly call that not a self-inflicted status.)”
That was the beginning. Elsewhere, Allen buoyantly marveled at the lack of security at the hotel:
“Like, the one thing that I immediately noticed walking into the hotel is the sense of arrogance. I walk in with multiple weapons and not a single person there considers the possibility that I could be a threat. The security at the event is all outside, focused on protestors and current arrivals, because apparently no one thought about what happens if someone checks in the day before. Like, if I was an Iranian agent, instead of an American citizen, I could have brought a damn Ma Deuce in here and no one would have noticed shit.”
Ma Deuce is a nickname for a Browning 50-caliber machine gun, an ungainly WWII-era weapon. It looks like this:
So. Yes, the guy is a dangerous fanatic. Yes, he decries arrogance and stupidity but has the arrogance to decide a man needs killing, and the stupidity to not understand that the crime he intended to commit would have made things immeasurably worse. He pretended to be concerned about accidentally shooting innocents, but said he was prepared to do so if necessary, and added that they sort of deserve it by attending an event honoring Trump. So he’s a phony, self-exonerating hypocrite, too. Just like Trump.
He’s an asshole. But a funny asshole. Which is a little personally uncomfortable, to me.
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Gene Pool Gene Poll:
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And finally, if you have the means and the motive: