The Unhinged

It's just this sort of incident that allows conservatives to continually cast themselves in the role of "victim", question the integrity of media outlets that aren't Fox"News", and provide specious claims that it's actually The Left that is to blame for moments like this:



A look at Duke's Facebook page - which has been taken down, naturally - reveals this about the man.

Duke's "Favorite Quotes" section contains a number of links to political websites—mostly pretty out-there 9/11-truther-here-comes-the-new-world-order stuff, but also the mainstream liberal Media Matters and, of course, a Wikileaks mirror. (Expect these sites to be the ball in the exciting "Clay Duke Was a Dangerous Liberal" vs. "Clay Duke Was a Nutcase Conservative" game we'll all get to watch over the next few days.) His "Religious Views" are "Humanism" and his "Political Views" are "Freedom Fighter."

And Glenn Beck is already launched into this game, albeit with a half-hearted caveat that Media Matters really wasn't responsible for the shooting.

Considering that Duke's Facebook page is gone, we really don't know what he had to say about Media Matters, but Beck certainly continues to paint a dark and venomous picture of who runs MM. Look for Beck's writers to fold this story into a new chalkboard meme in the coming days.

Other conservatives are even framing this from the angle that Media Matters and liberals/progressives aren't even going to be remotely curious as to why Duke read, watched, and listened to the information sources he listed on his page. Naturally, the "truther" aspects of Duke's digital footprint get no mention from conservatives. Typical.

But looking at Duke's "suicide note", you get a clear picture that this man was pretty screwed up, and is more on par with an Alex Jones fan than a liberal or progressive.

My Testament: Some people (the government sponsored media) will say I was evil, a monster (V)… no… I was just born poor in a country where the Wealthy manipulate, use, abuse, and economically enslave 95% of the population. Rich Republicans, Rich Democrats… same-same… rich… they take turns fleecing us… our few dollars… pyramiding the wealth for themselves. The 95%… the us, in US of A, are the neo slaves of the Global South. Our Masters, the Wealthy, do, as they like to us…

As far as the "V" symbol, this will likely become part of the Beckian analysis of this story, though it just appears to be yet another example of how plain-old batshit crazy this guy was.