The Tearful Troy Newman

This picture is from Operation Rescue's website.

This weekend the NY Times published an article about the abortion clinic protesters in Kansas. It's an amazing read - the antichoice folks do a little too much whining, and show no empathy for Dr. Tiller's family.

Although Operation Rescue worked for years to close down Dr. Tiller’s clinic, his death was never the outcome Mr. Newman wished for, he said. Of the man charged with killing Dr. Tiller, he tearfully said, “This idiot did more to damage the pro-life movement than you can imagine.”

Aw, poor Mr. Newman! Poor Operation Rescue! For years you picketed Dr. Tiller's clinic, held up pictures of mutilated fetuses, screamed about murder - and now you're pissed off because one of your whack jobs killed the golden goose?

This is the thing. The fetus fetishists had control of the White House, both houses of Congress, and the Supreme Court - yet they did nothing to stop abortion. Why? Because for the GOP and the Christian Taliban - abortion really is the golden goose. It's a way to keep money flowing, keep crazy people busy, and get folks all stirred up - without Operation Rescue having to do very much work at all. Tearful Mr. Newman of Operation Rescue was undoubtedly raking in a nice big salary for blabbing on endlessly about a cause he probably could care less about, as long as the faithful were sending in donations. How much more cynical, and transparent could these people be?

Scott P. Roeder, a Kansas City man charged with murder in Dr. Tiller’s death, was not a member of Operation Rescue or a contributor to it, Mr. Newman said. But the authorities found a slip of paper with the organization’s name in Mr. Roeder’s car when he was arrested, as well as the name of one of its leaders and her telephone number. He had also met Mr. Newman at least once.

“I have been racking my brain to see if there was something I could have done,” Mr. Newman said of Mr. Roeder.

Dr. Tiller’s clinic was the one — the big one — Mr. Newman had always hoped to close. Still, he said, if it closed now it would be no victory for Operation Rescue.
“Good God, do not close this abortion clinic for this reason,” he said. “Every kook in the world will get some notion.”

Apparently his brain isn't very big. It's pretty easy to discern what Mr. Newman might have done. The Operation Rescue staffer, Cheryl Sullenger, whose name was in Roeder's car had been convicted of clinic bombings in the past. Perhaps Mr. Newman could have avoided hiring convicted terrorists.. Perhaps he could have instructed his terrorist army to tone down their rhetoric. He could have instructed his army of terrorists not to put up websites with pictures of doctors, their families, maps to their homes and churches, etc. There are plenty of things he could have done. He didn't do a single one of them.

I won't be surprised to find that Mr. Newman's organization helped fund Scott Roeder. A guy with no job, and $10 to his name needed money for gas to keep driving across the state to glue clinic doors locked. Someone was funding Roeder.

Troy Newman worked for an organization that (at the very least) helped to ensure that this happened. For him to whine about it shows incredible hubris. This arrogant little whiner has blood on his hands - and lacks the grace and intelligence to feel guilty for having helped to incite a murder.