Of all the political angles that might be played in connection with the Aurora theater shooting, surely racism would be a card too far, right?
Wrong. Subbing for Ed Schultz on MSNBC tonight, Michael Eric Dyson managed to suggest that James Holmes would have attracted the attention of the authorities earlier had he been, yup, "a Muslim or another minority." Until he twisted her arm, it was too much even for Dyson's super-lib guest, Illinois congresswoman Jan Schakowsky. View the video after the jump.
MICHAEL ERIC DYSON: You know, what strikes me here of course , is that when you hear the epithets being hurled on either side about politicization of this issue, we know at the end of the day if that kind of amassing and stockpiling of that kind of, you know, potential to hurt people through that, you know, those bullets and those guns and the gasses and the bombs and the like, if this had been stockpiled by a person who was more likely to look reasonably offensive: a Muslim or another minority, do you think that the red flag would have gone up sooner than with this seemingly innocent young white man, who under cover and protection of appearing normal, was out to do some heinous deeds.
Even super-lib Schakowsky wasn't buying.
JAN SCHAKOWSKY: You know, maybe, although given the lack of regulation about purchasing ammunition on the internet, given the lax gun laws in so many places, I'm not so sure that we could have stopped anybody, particularly one with this kind of intention.
Dyson wouldn't be deterred.
DYSON: But do you think the FedEx man would have noticed like, if he was taking something to an address constantly, and the FedEx person, the woman [whew, Dyson barely saved himself from the PC police. FedEx "man"??] is seeing this, maybe a pattern is being established? I mean, no red flag at all there?
It just wasn't worth it to Jan to deny Dyson any longer, so she threw him a bone.
SCHAKOWSKY: Well, it could be, and you know one of those gun rangers turned him down because there was this odd message that was on his machine. There may be signals, and you're right, maybe if he had a different profile, or looked different, he might have been discovered.
