The hollow defense of something indefensible

Ok. As you might've guessed, the reason for all the happy little video clips is because I don't want this to become a too dank and depressing place. But, we do need to revisit the shooting.

First some more information about the murdered man. This comes from Cara at Feministe.

Dr. Tiller was one of the few late-term abortion providers in the country. He had previously been shot, his clinic burnt down, harassed by ideological anti-abortion attorney generals, and threatened with death countless times. We’ve written about his many trials and tribulations here numerous times. Still, Dr. Tiller continued to provide abortions to women who desperately needed them, to save their own lives or health, or due to tragic fetal deformities. He put the health of women above his own life.

And now he is dead.

Cara also has a link to a statement from the victim's family, which reads in part:

"Today we mourn the loss of our husband, father and grandfather. Today's event is an unspeakable tragedy for all of us and for George's friends and patients. This is particularly heart wrenching because George was shot down in his house of worship, a place of peace.

And as Jesse Taylor writes at Pandagon:

pro-lifers, there may be something wrong with your movement when you have to send out press releases making clear that you don’t actually condone cold-blooded murder.

Pro-gun control liberals don’t show up at gun shows and hector attendees. (And if your response is, “Damn right they don’t, because they’d get shot,” you’re proving my point.) Fundamentalists don’t have to worry about fleets of bike-riding hippies showing up at the entrance to their church every Sunday, telling them that their God is false. Religious “family planning” clinics don’t live in constant fear of a Molotov cocktail flying through their plate glass window, don’t have to train their employees on how to handle bomb threats, don’t need to worry about their clients’ safety on the way from their car to the front door. But if you provide abortion services - even if you’re not actually providing an abortion to the person coming in the door, even though it has been repeatedly declared legal - you live in fear.

Now we come to what has the "abortion foes" worried about all of this.

Say what you will about Randall Terry, but at least that loon flat-out says what most if not all of them mean:

Tiller was "a mass murderer and horrifically, he reaped what he sowed," Terry told the National Press Club in Washington.

Unlike those who just twitter (note the small t) around it:

Some anti-abortion leaders said they didn't believe people were paying enough attention to Tiller's abortion practices.

"What he did is being glossed over," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.

Glossed over? Is there any way to read that where it isn't saying, on some level, that the man deserved to die? How much gloss do you need to forget that?

"It's possible that the pro-abortion side will try to use an instance like this to avoid discussing the abortion issue itself, but that's not new," said David O'Steen, executive director of the National Right to Life Committee.

There it is.

They're worried it could give people a bad opinion of them.

Holy. Heavenly. Christ!