Weekly Standard may have been shooter target - ben smith

[Cash_thatswhatiwant]

FBI agents visited the offices of the conservative Weekly Standard magazine yesterday after a shooting at the Holocaust Memorial Museum and told employees they'd found the magazine's address

A senior Standard staffer confirmed the visit but declined to discuss it in detail. An FBI spokeswoman, Katherine Schweit , also declined to comment on the investigation.

Two other sources said two FBI agents arrived shortly after 5:00 p.m. Thursday at the 17th Street offices of the magazine. They told staffers that they had found the address of the magazine on a piece of paper associated with the shooter, James von Brunn, and asked whether the Standard had received any threats.

The magazine is about a mile north of the Holocaust Museum, and there's no other indication that von Brunn had targeted it. Von Brunn's published rants included attacks on "neocons," and the Standard has been at the heart of the neoconservative movement.

The suggestion that the Standard may have been a target complicates any view of the racist shooter in contemporary left-right terms. Von Brunn's white supremacist roots put him under the rubric of a "right-wing extremist," but the substance of his views -- which included everything from believing that President Bush may have been in on the September 11 attacks to denying that President Obama is an American citizen -- are too far on the fringe to fit into conventional political classification.

The focus on the Standard, though, appears to be of a piece with his central motivation: Anti-Semitism. In one essay, Von Brunn attacked "JEWS-NEOCONS-BILL O’REILLY," and the suggestion that neoconservatism is a specifically Jewish conspiracy is common on the racist fringe.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0609/Weekly_Standard_may_have_been_shooter_target.html?showall

[elleng]

1. the suggestion that neoconservatism is a specifically Jewish conspiracy is common'

Wonder why???

The Weekly Standard is a conservative American opinion magazine published 48 times per year. It is owned by News Corporation and made its debut on September 16, 1995. Its current editors are founder William Kristol and Fred Barnes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weekly_Standard

William Kristol is editor of the influential Washington-based political magazine, The Weekly Standard. Widely recognized as one of the nation's leading political analysts and commentators, Mr. Kristol regularly appears on Fox News Sunday and on the Fox News Channel.

Before starting The Weekly Standard in 1995, Mr. Kristol led the Project for the Republican Future, where he helped shape the strategy that produced the 1994 Republican congressional victory.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/aboutus/bio_kristol.asp

[Kolesar]

3. "loses more than a million dollars a year"--but a great return for the energy industry

Who gets billions of our dollars a day.

[Kolesar]

2. "denying that President Obama is an American citizen" was featured at the Fox-teabagger rallies

And I would say *that* is mainstream Republican thought, not fringe RW ...

[zbdent]

4. probably had "Weekly Standard's" address so that after he shot up the Holocaust museum

he could go there and give his Manifesto interview, as a "conquering hero" ...

[ErinBerin84]

5. probably thought they weren't "conservative" enough.

When Rush was saying the other day "He's a leftist..he hates John McCain!" Uh, so do you, Rushbo.

[Vinnie From Indy]

6. The Weekly Standard angle to this story is simply propaganda

It appeared at Politico first and within MINUTES it was being blasted out from every right wing hate radio program as proof the gunman was a "leftie". I hope everyone notices that the claim is completely unsubstantiated by anything other than TWO ANONYMOUS SOURCES. As with many previous right wing propaganda efforts, the claim that Von Brunn was going to target the Weekly Standard is probably a lie. The goal from the hate merchants on the right is simply to get this out into circulation as fast as possible to deflect their culpability in inspiring such acts by deranged listeners. The truth of the matter is irrelevant. Getting the lie out to their idiot listeners is the key. A lie makes it around the globe before the truth can get it's shoes on.