Another False Alarm on “Example” of Rightwing Violence
Tuesday morning, someone took a hammer and broke the windows at the Colorado Democrat Party headquarters. The windows shattered displayed posters supporting President Obama’s health care proposals. Speaking to the press that morning, Pat Waak, the Democratic Party chairwoman said that the vandalism to her building was the result of “an effort on the other side to stir up hate.” This damage had to be committed by some rightwing extremist. You know, one of those “evil mongers” that Harry Reid was talking about who “carry swastikas” as Nancy Pelosi asserted and use “brown shirt tactics” as Washington State representative Brian Baird accused. Those rightwing extremists that the Department of Homeland Security issued their report warning about had finally gone too far.
Maurice Schwenkler was arrested for breaking windows of the Democrat HQ in Colorado. It turns out Schwenkler wasn't a rightwing extremist. Instead, he was a former Democrat campaign staffer.
The Denver Post published the most recent update to the story. Waak’s rhetoric cooled after police arrested 24-year-old Maurice Schwenkler in connection with the crime. Schwenkler’s accomplice still remains at large. After the arrest, a few facts surfaced about Schwenkler that caused Waak to retreat on her accusations. It seems that the Democrat Party headquarters’ windows weren’t broken by a rightwing extremist. Instead, they were broken by Schwenkler who was arrested last fall in St. Paul Minnesota at the 2008 Republican National Convention for unlawful protest. He also served as a door-to-door canvasser for Democrat candidate Molle Cullom during last year’s November election. Therefore, the vandalism wasn’t the result of rightwing extremists’ violent acts – it was the result of a liberal activist trying to create the image of violent acts from rightwing extremists.
So what did Waak say after the vandal’s identity and political affiliations were discovered? She explained, “What I’ve been saying is there is a lot of rhetoric out there from both sides of the spectrum. That’s what’s really disturbing to me. People are saying a lot of things not appropriate for civil discourse.” Excuse me? Only a liberal Democrat could accuse political adversaries of vandalizing their building in order to “stir up hate” and then not apologize after it’s discovered that the crime was committed by a member of their own party in an effort to frame Republicans. Waak’s follow-up statement still implies that even though this crime wasn’t committed by rightwing extremists, it doesn’t mean that it couldn’t have been.
As discussed in an earlier post, leftwing extremists were arrested in St. Paul for planning to bomb the RNC last year and the FBI informant who prevented the attacks received a death threat from another leftwing activist. In St. Louis, a former Democrat campaign strategist was arrested for setting off a bomb in a Clayton, Missouri parking garage intended to kill the attorney who represented plaintiffs against the man in multiple cases. Just a couple of weeks ago, a man in St. Louis was hospitalized in after he was brutally beaten by members of the SEIU because he was a black conservative. Now, we have a Democrat campaign worker busting out windows in Colorado in an effort to create the image of rightwing extremist violence. Yet, even after all of this, Democrats and supposed “journalists” in the main stream media are still wringing their hands at the threat of violence committed by rightwing extremists. Tell me again, who are the “evil mongers” employing “brown shirt tactics” in the current debates?