The murder of abortion doctor George Tiller is the first high-profile incident of domestic right-wing terrorism in a long time. Why now? Wasn't 9/11 supposed to have shamed the domestic terrorists into putting a lid on it?
My guess is that the long lull in domestic right-wing terrorism had more to do with who was in the White House. Bush may not have been everything a right-wing terrorist dreamed of in a president, but he was good enough to make blowing up buildings and shooting doctors a low priority. The shooting of George Tiller is the first sign that the Tim McVeighs of this country are dissatisfied with the Obama Era. I fear it won't be the last.
Nor is this kind of thing entirely a grassroots movement. Domestic terrorist movements don't always have a Radio des Mille Collines (the Rwandan radio station that repeatedly told murderous Hutus that "The graves are not yet full!"), but there always seem to be some big-time media figures skirting the boundary between fire-breathing rhetoric and incitement to violence. For example, take Bill O'Reilly, who demonized the late Dr. Tiller no less than 29 times since 2005, repeatedly calling him "Tiller the Baby Killer" and claiming that the doctor's "judgment day" was inevitable. Or Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, who claims to be more concerned about Obama's reaction to the murder than with the murder itself.
These men are putting the Obama administration on notice that a sufficiently organized, desperate, angry right wing does not need to win elections in order to exercise political power. The phenomenon of right-wing domesic terrorism is not unique to the U.S., nor to the current era (for example, it was right-wing domestic terrorists who forced Imperial Japan's leadership to commit to the obviously disastrous World War 2). A liberal, reformist leader is all the excuse rightists need to dust off their pipe bombs and sniper rifles.
Get ready for an interesting eight years.
Update: Former right-wing activist Frank Schaeffer asks forgiveness for inciting right-wing violence.
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