The Glory That is the Tea Party: ‘George Washington Would’ve Blown Jim McDermott’s Brains Out’

Cong. Jim McDermott, who represents me in the U.S. Congress and is one of the few truly progressive members in that body, suffered an even worse set of threats than I have from a jackass who truly represents the glory that is the Tea Party movement:

A California man accused of threatening Congressman Jim McDermott has pleaded guilty to federal charges, a U.S. Attorney’s Office spokeswoman said.

In U.S. District Court on Wednesday morning, Charles Turner Habermann, a 32-year-old Palm Springs, Calif., resident, admitted to making threatening phone calls to the Seattle Democrat’s office late last year…

Habermann is alleged to have threatened to kill McDermott in an effort to interfere with his vote on the tax cut proposal in December 2010. A McDermott staffer contacted the FBI on Dec. 10, reporting that the congressman’s Seattle office had received the offending phone calls.

In one, the speaker was heard calling McDermott “a piece of human filth,” “a communist,” and a “piece of (expletive) garbage.”

“Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, or George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, if any of them had ever met uh, uh Jim McDermott, they would all blow his brains out,” Habermann said in the first rambling message, according to charging documents. “They’d shoot him, in the head. They’d kill him, because he’s a piece of, of, of disgusting garbage. …

“Any you let that (expletive) scum bag know, that if he ever (expletive) with my money, ever the (expletive) again, I’ll (expletive) kill him, okay,” Habermann continued, according to charges. “I’ll round them up, I’ll kill them, I’ll kill his friends, I’ll kill his family, I will kill everybody he (expletive) knows.”

The second message continued in the same vein, Giboney told the court, noting that Habermann identified himself by name in both calls.

…Habermann said he’d been drinking the night he made the calls but was “functioning,” the FBI agent told the court.

…”Habermann stated that he never had any intention of hurting anyone,” the agent continued, “and that he had too much to lose — referring to his $3 million trust fund — to ever do anything which could get him sent to prison.”

This story is far funnier than it has any right to be given how scary the charges against Habermann and his crimes.  I’m touched that this moron seems to believe that George Washington, Thomas Jeffferson and Alexander Hamilton were as stupid as he is.  The fact that Hamilton was actually murdered in a gun duel with Aaron Burr seems lost on Habermann.

Is this an argument against providing trust funds to callow youth, or what?  Hilarious that this guy has the presence of mind to realize he shouldn’t actually kill a federal official because it might bankrupt him, but not the presence of mind to understand that if you threaten to kill one you’ll still end up in a world of trouble (up to 10 years in federal prison) and might end up bankrupt anyway.  Note as well, that there’s absolutely no moral sense that he wouldn’t kill McDermott because it actually might be morally repugnant.  Only because he’d lose the bucks dad and mom set aside for him.  Someone should also tell him that the federal pen might not stock his particular brand of booze.  Another thing he may not have contemplated before he picked up the phone.

And clearly it’s an indication that Darwin’s law of survival of the fittest didn’t work in his case.  For him, it appears to be survival of the least fit (mentally, at least).  If I ever got drunk, I can think of a lot of things I might do, some pretty dumb, but threatening the life of two U.S. Congressmembers and leaving my name as a calling card?  That wouldn’t be among them.

Huffington Post says he was investigated for making threats against a California Assembly member in March 2010.  I guess he was looking for even bigger thrills and decided to go after a federal official the next time he pulled this stunt.