Rigtwing Pundits Lose Interest In Treatening E-Mailer After Guilty Plea

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When the story about Bruce Shore’s threatening e-mails to Sen. Jim Bunning first hit the blogosphere, I wrote in a blog post how the right wing punditry blasted the Obama administration for having the FBI track down this man and than have the US Marshal pay him a visit with a Grad Jury Indictment in hand. To many, this was a sign of the Obama police state that was coming and that Mr. Shore was being used as a scapegoat to go after the real target of the administration. Of course that is the First Amendment. But now that he's seen the light and changed his plea to guilty, support from the right for Mr. Shore as all but evaporated.

Jackie Headaphol originally orposted at Mlive.Com that “The first amendment of the U.S. Constitution allows Americans to write angry letters to their elected officials.”

It does? – I’ve read the First Amendment several times and could not find the passage that allows angry letters of any sort. What the First Amendment does is prevent the Government from infringing on the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances.

People are often mistaken that the term “freedom of speech” refers to any and all speech and of course, that is a ridiculous presumption. If that were the case, The National Enquirer would never have paid out a dime to the list of celebrities that have successfully sued or settled their claims against the paper for what it printed. If freedom of speech was as broad as Ms. Headaphol seems to believe it is, White Aryan Resistance founder Tom Metzger would not have been sucessfully sued for his type of speech. But of course Ms. Headaphol should have been well aware that Mr. Shore was not indicted for “writing angry letters” but rather for sending threatening e-mails.

The indictment says that on Feb. 26, Shore "did utilize a telecommunications device, that is a computer, whether or not communication ensued, without disclosing his identity and with the intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, and harass any person who received the communication."

Ms. Headophol wrote that: “Unless Shore wrote a specific threat against Mr. Bunning in the email he was indicted for, this incident is disturbing to anyone who values their right to free speech. She then posted just a small snipit of one of Mr. Shore's e-mails to Sen. Bunning that read:

"ARE you'all insane," said part of one letter Shore sent on Feb. 26 (which he shared with HuffPost). "NO checks equal no food for me. DO YOU GET IT??"

However, she must have overlooked the part of Mr. Shore’s letter that said. “"IF THIS POLITICAL GRANDSTANDING DOES NOT END TODAY - WE WILL COME TO YOUR OFFICES AND MAKE OUR POINT."

Oh really! – Exactly whom are “we” and how will they “make” their point? – At gunpoint? – Or perhaps at knifepoint? - This is what I would have been thinking if I were on Sen. Bunning’s staff. They absolutely did the right think by handing over the e-mails to the authorities. Can anyone with a lick of sense imagine what would be said if the Obama administration just brushed the incident under the rug or perhaps even tried to block the FBI from investigating?

It must be time consuming to consistently come up with two responses for everything that Barack Obama does or doesn’t do or for what he said or shouldn’t have said. Now the point of this post is that on Saturday May, 29 Ms. Headoaphol made sure to updated her original post to add that Mr. Shore had pleaded not guilty to those charges that should "disturbe those that care about their freedom of speech."

However, now that Mr. Shore has seen the light and perhaps now understands that freedom of speech does not include any and all speech, he has pleaded guilty as charged. Yet Ms. Headaphol seems to have lost interest in any further updates to her original post. In fact, I've yet to see the level of support from the right for Mr. Shore since changing his plea from not guilty to guilty.

(In my best Glenn Beck/Kermet The Frog Voice) GEE That's funny...

-Chico Brisbane