Patterico's Pontifications

1/22/2009

Conservatives Get Envelopes with White Powder in the Mail

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:10 am



The New York Times reports:

Envelopes containing white powder arrived at The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday morning, addressed to top editors and executives of the newspaper, stirring recollections of the anthrax mailings of 2001 and prompting the evacuation of some of the paper’s offices in Lower Manhattan.

. . . .

But Journal employees, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter, said that at least some envelopes were sent to Robert Thomson, the managing editor; Paul A. Gigot, the editorial page editor; and Leslie Hinton, the chief executive of Dow Jones & Company, the unit of the News Corporation that owns the paper.

. . . .

A letter with similar markings, also postmarked from Tennessee, was received on Wednesday at Harvard Law School, addressed to the legal scholar Alan M. Dershowitz, law enforcement officials said. And Mr. Browne said Wednesday’s incidents may be linked to similar mailings of white powder to the Fox News Channel and to several conservative commentators in early December.

Sometimes I get busy and miss things in the news. Anyone else remember the stories about conservatives getting powder in the mail?

22 Responses to “Conservatives Get Envelopes with White Powder in the Mail”

  1. I’m pretty sure it got at least as much coverage as the actual recovery of hundreds of chemical weapons in Iraq got.

    So, no, I didn’t see it either.

    EW1(SG) (e27928)

  2. That Pixie-Dust manufacturer in Nashville really needs to find a new marketing plan.

    AD (5bbccc)

  3. Call me when it turns out to be real nasty stuff. There are lots of crazy idiots who think putting talcum powder in an envelope and mailing it to people they disagree with is an appropriate practical joke.

    I am not for ignoring it, the government should track down and prosecute these jokers. But we should not encourage them either with attention.

    Joe (17aeff)

  4. NYT got some in late October. Looks as though “lieberals” get them as well. Amazing.

    tamizdat (e8f5ce)

  5. Joe, I agree. It’s probably better to yawn in the face of this crap.

    Tamiz, you’re right, there are nuts on the right and the left. But the left’s nuts are so much more active right now.

    I saw Obama walk to the white house. Why didn’t Bush get to do that? Oh yeah, the democrats threatened violence. His limo was pelted with eggs before Bush had made a single presidential move. Think of the uproar if Obama had to avoid his walk, and was pelted with eggs! In Houston, there’s a statue of bush 41… it was vandalized during Obama’s inauguration. Nothing like that would have happened to Clinton monuments had Mccain been nominated.

    It’s not fair to claim the typical democrat is this kind of scum, though. It’s just a sign of how unhinged a certain element of Obama’s support is. Unhinged enough to be worried about. Goes without saying that Obama would stop all that garbage if he could.

    Joco (4cdfb7)

  6. One recalls there was a flurry of such letters to Governor’s offices at the end of last year, including in Juneau. There was the small matter of the Church fire in Wasilla; there was also a fire at some African American church in Masssachussetts There’s no excuse for any of it, and anyone one who participates in this, should suffer the highest penalties imaginable.

    narciso (57971e)

  7. Well, of course conservatives got them, because it’s a harmless white powder (insuring that no one actually got hurt) mailed to them by another evil reich-wing Rethuglican to try to make people assume it was a liberal!

    Did you really need me to tell you this? Oh, that’s right: Levi’s banned and David Ehrenstein’s stuff is automatically moderated.

    The conspiracy-theorist Dana (3e4784)

  8. Google “white powder Wall Street Journal.” The coverage was widespread.

    Turns out Alan Dershowitz got an envelope, too.

    Tim McGarry (9fe080)

  9. “I’m pretty sure it got at least as much coverage as the actual recovery of hundreds of chemical weapons in Iraq got.” EW +1

    Surprise, surprise, surprise! (Gomer Pyle) I had not heard of that before reading it here on Patterico. Instead, all I heard was the sound of those dang crickets chirping. Kind of like the press is coverning that Geitner dude, man. Knarly.

    J. Raymond Wright (d83ab3)

  10. Joe, #3: That sounds reasonable to me. I think the gripe people on this site have is the naggins suspicion that, had the recipients been high profile liberals, it would have #1) been given widespread coverage and #2) that coverage would have been used as a metaphor for conservatives as a whole (much like the random “kill ’em” comment at a McCain rally was).

    Oh, and Dershowitz may have long ties to the Democratic party, but lately he is known primarily as an extremely uncompromising defender of Isreal and its policies, so he winds up being on “our” side, as it were, much like Liebermann.

    Sean P (e57269)

  11. Joe, #3: That sounds reasonable to me. I think the gripe people on this site have is the naggins suspicion that, had the recipients been high profile liberals, it would have #1) been given widespread coverage and #2) that coverage would have been used as a metaphor for conservatives as a whole (much like the random “kill ’em” comment at a McCain rally was).

    Oh, and Dershowitz may have long ties to the Democratic party, but lately he is known primarily as an extremely uncompromising defender of Isreal and its policies, so he winds up being on “our” side, as it were, much like Liebermann.

    Sean P (e57269)

  12. unsurprisingly, a search on the Slime’s website only turned up yesterday’s article:

    http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/results.html?st=advanced&QryTxt=%22white+powder%22&type=current&sortby=REVERSE_CHRON&datetype=6&frommonth=12&fromday=01&fromyear=2008&tomonth=12&today=31&toyear=2009&By=&Title=&at=ALL&Sect=ALL&x=45&y=19

    BTW: Joco? not only does Juggy *not* do anything to stop such behavior, he encourages it.

    redc1c4 (9c4f4a)

  13. Compare and contrast the coverage of this as to when Keith Olberman evecauated and rushed to the ER …

    JD (397a27)

  14. It must have been the Target Dope thinking he was sending a shipment of Coke.

    Oiram (983921)

  15. It’s not fair to claim the typical democrat is this kind of scum, though. It’s just a sign of how unhinged a certain element of Obama’s support is. Unhinged enough to be worried about. Goes without saying that Obama would stop all that garbage if he could.

    It goes without saying? Um, no it is incorrect even if you do state it.

    Ed from PA (c313be)

  16. Did McCain have the ability to pre-emptively stop a woman from claiming a black man had branded her cheek? Or, are you claiming (since Obama has this magical power as well, according to you) that McCain wanted this to reach the news?

    Juuuuust curious.

    Ed from PA (c313be)

  17. Please cite one instance in which Obama felt the need to restrain/condemn his nutbag supporters on the far Left. I seem to recall McCain immediately upbraiding a conservative radio host who made idiotic announcements before one of his rallies. Did Obama do anything of this nature during the campaign, or did he do any repudiation of anyone connected to his campaign without extreme attention previously paid from the MSM?

    Dmac (eb0dd0)

  18. Goes without saying that Obama would stop all that garbage if he could.

    That is not the lefty standard. Failure by any Republican to denounce any conduct lefties didn’t like, was painted by lefties and the MSM as a Republican endorsement of said behavior.

    No Denouncement = Full Endorsement.

    Perfect Sense (9d1b08)

  19. Comment by Dmac — 1/22/2009 @ 12:50 pm

    Your once instance doesn’t have any details. Did you conjure up this story?

    Ed from PA (fdb217)

  20. Who. Fucking. Cares? Decades ago, my junior high school received a bunch of bomb threats, each requiring evacuation. Why isn’t that on the front page of the New York Times? Pre-crime and crime-threat are the most over reported things ever. Accuracy is good.

    Wesson (3ab0b8)

  21. Comment by Dmac — 1/22/2009 @ 12:50 pm

    Your once instance doesn’t have any details. Did you conjure up this story?

    Comment by Ed from PA — 1/22/2009 @ 4:46 pm

    Are you fucking kidding me! You managed to miss that, or are you just playing stupid.
    In brief (and with out double checking details) a local group had asked a conservative radio talk show host to introduce McCain. He made some references to Obamas middle name. McCain spent the entire evening denouncing these references.
    I will also direct your attention to McCain taking the microphone back from an elderly woman who had just made accusations against Obama and publicly reprimanding her for her opinions.
    Now you come up with one time that Obama corrected someone who called GWB a terrorist.

    Have Blue (974cdf)

  22. NO

    sue (60cff3)


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