Circle one:
They killed/did not kill Paul Wellstone

    When I turned on CNN and learned that Paul Wellstone's plane went down, my first thought was was one of shock and fear: "Oh my God they killed Paul Wellstone."

   Then I became sad. All my life I've seen pictures of people crying on the day John F. Kennedy was shot. I've always looked at those images with wonder, thinking I could never understand the mentality of feeling such personal sorrow about a fallen public figure. I was too jaded. Such a mentality is for people of the past.

     But on the day Senator Wellstone's plane went down, I cried. In fact, I cried on two separate occasions. Once, a few minutes after the shock wore off, and once again after seeing Senator Harkin lose his composure over the death of his good friend. (By the way, thank you Wolff Blitzer for warning the viewers that Harkin became emotional "in case you don't want to see that" — what kind twisted media logic is that? "Oh no a Senator is crying...I can't take it.")

      Now, I will admit I was having a really stressful day already, and my emotions were very much on the surface, as they had somewhat for the past year, ever since the day when pieces of World Trade Center raining down on my Booklyn home forced my friends and I to flee the neigbhorhood so we could breathe. Also, I think much of my sadness had less to do with the man Wellstone himself than the possibility that he had been assassinated. The implications of that just freaked me out at a time I didn't think anything more could freak me out.

      I concede that an accident is a reasonable possibility, but will study all the reports on that crash with much scrutiny, and will not discount the possibility that Wellstone's death was a hit:

     Look at who Wellstone was and what Senate committees he sat on (hint: Foreign Relations Committee and Chairman of Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs). Then look at the fact that in this election year, where each Senate race is pivotal to deciding which party controls that legislative body, a poll issued two weeks before the crash showed Wellstone pulling ahead of his opponent (a surprise, since many observers thought that Wellstone's recent vote against the Bush Administration's Iraq Resolution would hurt his showing at the polls).

     Now, add to this that there is "no obvious cause" of his plane's crash, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, and that it burned so badly that only the tail section remains intact.

     Now remember who our President is...and who is father was (George senior, if you don't know, was formerly Director of Central Intelligence at the CIA). I'm sorry, this Administration, and these insane times, are pushing me back into the 'lunatic fringe.'

(Update, March 2005) 

    Speaking of lunatic fringe, see what they have to say about the parallel circumstances between the airplane death of Wellstone during his Senate race, and the airplane death of Mel Carnahan in his 2000 Senate campaign against John Ashcroft. (Carnahan beat Ashcroft, even though he was dead at election time.) See Want To Know and Liberal Slant have to say, including the possible use of an EMP (Electromagnetic pulse) device, to bring these candidates' planes down.

When I have the time to report it, I will post more on the Carnahan and Wellstone incidents here.

    For now, I can only say tha, thankfully, Paul Wellstone's work lives on through Wellstone Action, an organization founded by his family.

Paul Wellsone: 1944-2002

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