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The Mail Bombs

Our leaders should avoid throwing gasoline on the fires burning in the minds of crazy people

In a country of 375 million, there are bound to be some homicidal ideological lunatics, like the person or persons who sent pipe bombs to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, CNN, George Soros, and others — and like the left-wing monster who opened fire on Rep. Steve Scalise and the House GOP members in the summer of 2017. Still, when their evil is made manifest, it shocks and disgusts us.

I hope the FBI catches this person or persons quickly, and puts them away for life.

This stuff really does terrorize. I was on Cipro for a couple of weeks back in the autumn of 2001 when an unknown terrorist, who was never caught, sent an envelope containing anthrax to my newspaper, the New York Post. I did not have anthrax, but rather was catching a bronchial infection, as it turned out — but doctors did not want to take the risk of waiting to see if it was anthrax. My colleague Joanna Huden, whose hand became infected with anthrax, had the envelope on her desk for a couple of days. I leaned over the pile of mail two or three times in talking to her.

We were all so anxious at the paper in those days. We didn’t know if our own death would come in the morning mail.

Now every leading Democratic politician, and every major media organization, will have to worry. Similarly, if I were a senior Republican politician or media figure, I would be very reticent to go out to eat, for fear that if someone in the “Resistance” confronted me, they would be armed and try to hurt me.

This is horrible. It’s hard to know what to say about something like this, except it bodes ill for our country, because it brings to mind the late 1960s through the mid-1970s, when political violence by extremists was more common. I know, I know, that’s a banality. I hope President Trump and all other political actors will tone down their rhetoric. It’s not Trump’s fault that some devil mailed pipe bombs to Democrats and to CNN, nor was it Nancy Pelosi’s fault that a lunatic tried to assassinate House Republicans. Still, our leaders should be doing everything within their power not to throw gasoline on the fires burning in the minds of crazy people. That’s not a big ask.

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