The vindication of Clay County, Ky.

Y'all remember Morgan Bowling, right? Well, she gave me a call yesterday afternoon from Kentucky, and so I mentioned her in my American Spectator column:

Thanks to an anonymous source in an Associated Press story and a flurry of speculation by bloggers, however, this quiet community was imagined to be a seething cauldron of hatred stoked by Fox News, talk radio and Republican politicians. Clay County's state Sen. Robert Stivers told the Lexington Herald-Leader that "many in the media owe the county an apology." As Morgan Bowling said Tuesday afternoon, at times it seemed as if pundits were trying to turn Bill Sparkman into a "sacrificial lamb for ObamaCare."
At the height of the national media glare, the Manchester Enterprise's young editor received an e-mail from New York: "What are you people, backwoods ignorant freaks?" the e-mailer wrote. "This crime is a reflection of all the residents of Clay County. . . . You are all disgusting pigs, and if one could level a curse at a community, then I curse the whole lot of you."
Morgan Bowling is only a few months into her journalism career, but she got a crash course about what can happen when irresponsible reporting leads to unfounded speculation.

You can read the whole thing. And you should also read Michelle Malkin's rejoinder to Andrew Sullivan.

UPDATE: Well played, Charles Johnson!

Since this news came out, I've received several angry emails demanding that I apologize for saying Sparkman had been murdered by a right wing extremist.
The problem is, I never wrote anything like that. For the record, this was my post when the story broke, and I don't apologize for a single word:
"There's not enough information yet to say for sure what was behind this killing, so let's not jump to conclusions. But the description of the circumstances and the timing (around the time of the Washington DC tea party) raises a strong suspicion that anti-government sentiment may have been the motivation."

Right. And the connnection between the two phenomena -- the murder and the 9/12 March on D.C. -- was entirely imaginary, so long as we assume that Bill Sparkman didn't have something like that in mind in choosing the date of his demise.

Nevertheless, don't apologize for your suspicion that the Tea Party movement represented the sort of "anti-government sentiment" that could motivate a murder.

By the way, Tea Party: The Documentary Film will have its Washington premiere next Wednesday, Dec. 2, at the Ronald Reagan Center.

UPDATE II: Perhaps it would help to explain that my interest in the Sparkman case -- what inspired my spur-of-the-moment urge Sept. 26 to light out for Kentucky -- was not so much a matter of ideology as of people.

Some have seen the debunking of the "right-wing lynching" meme as a vindication of conservatism, but I see it as the vindication of the people of Clay County. Having worked for 10 years as a journalist in the small towns of north Georgia, I was all too familiar with the yawning chasm between the perception and reality of such places and such people. Go back to my Sept. 29 American Spectator article:

MANCHESTER, Kentucky -- Rodney Miller has lived nearly all his 56 years in Clay County, the only exception being when, as a young man, he moved to Indianapolis. He lived in the big city for two years without ever knowing his neighbors' names.
"The best people in the world live here," says Miller, sitting in the office of the Manchester Enterprise, where he directs advertising sales. "Down here, everybody knows everybody else." . . .

Those are the kind of small-town people I know. It was their good names, and the reputation of an entire community, that were being smeared by the implication that they were a bunch of hateful yahoos who had lynched Bill Sparkman.

The good people of Clay County have been vindicated, and their know-it-all accusers (inter alia, the Harvard-educated Andrew Sullivan) have been exposed as credulous fools.

UPDATE III: Speaking of people who have been vindicated, this is as good a time as any -- on the eve of Thanksgiving -- to express my gratitude to our readers, especially those who have contributed to the Shoe Leather Fund.

Several people -- including Da Tech Guy -- have expressed congratulaions to me on the denouement of the Sparkman case, validating the reporting I did here, at the American Spectator and in the Hot Air Greenroom, but I would never have been able to do that reporting without the generosity of the tip-jar hitters. When I got the wild notion of traveling to Kentucky to cover the Sparkman case, I wrote:

Figure 1,200 miles travel round-trip, at 25 cents per mile, that's $300. Five meals at $5/each, that's another $25. A carton of smokes, $50; ten cups of coffee, $20. If you add $125/night for a hotel room, I could make it a two-day trip for $500. . . .
So if the tip jar contributions between now and Sunday evening reach $300, I'll take it for granted that the rest will come through while I'm on the road. I could be filing reports with a Kentucky dateline by Monday noon.

That $300 threshold was reached within a matter of hours, and it is to you people -- too numerous to name, lest anyone be omitted from the honor roll -- whom the congratulations are owed. The honor roll can be extended to include all the bloggers who have linked my reports on the Kentucky case, and to Smitty, whose labors and skills deserve so much praise.

You who have contributed should are invited to take a bow in the comments, and you who have not yet hit the tip jar -- well, what the heck are you waiting for?

My wife just spent $90 at the grocery store, including $12 for a turkey. We've got six kids to feed, including 17-year-old twin boys, and you know how teenage boys can eat. You know those $4 frozen pizzas? Last night our family ate four of those -- that's $16 worth for one meal.

Now try to imagine feeding this brood three times a day, 365 days a year. Like they say: Do the math. And the Christmas shopping season starts Friday.

When I came up with this blogging idea, my wife told me I was crazy -- and my wife is always right. But somehow crazy has always worked for me. So I am thankful for being crazy, and thankful that there are so many of you who (like Mrs. Other McCain) actually like my craziness. God bless you!

Kentucky Census right-wing lynching fake hate-crime suicide schadenfreude update

Let's start with this: If Bill Sparkman really did commit suicide and stage it to look like he was murdered by demented right-wing Kentuckians, he's a bigger loser than Andrew Sullivan. And that's quite an achievement.

So now that conservatives are in the post-vindication gloat zone, we ought to at least pause to reflect on the tragic dimension of Sparkman's death. There have been many fake hate-crimes over the years, including the Sharpton-abetted Tawana Brawley hoax, but to kill yourself in pursuit of politically-correct glory . . . well, this is truly sad.

High fives, anyone?

UPDATE: If you expected Sully to be gracious and admit he got carried away with his "Southern populist terrorism" rant. . . well, think again:

Notice Malkin's formulation: "pointed his finger" or "immediately fingered." I said the "possibility" remained real and that "we'll see." How can you finger someone when you simultaneously say we do not yet know what happened for sure?

This, from a post entitled "Correcting Michelle Malkin," as if Malkin -- who was right all along about the Sparkman case -- needs corrections from Dr. Andrew Sullivan, M.D., OB-GYN. Tell you what: We'll let Sarah Palin's Uterus be the arbiter here. We're not laughing with you, Sully, we're laughing at you.

UPDATE II: One thing that made the "right-wing crazies run amok" angle credible to the national media was the setting in the rural South, and Old Reb reminds us that the MSM relied on the usual suspects:

Both the Department of Homeland Security and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) have warned of a dramatic spike in antigovernment militia activity.

Lower Glennbeckistan gets a shout-out from that dangerous redneck Michael Moynihan at Reason, who quotes some of the original lefty fear-mongering:

If conservative politicians and opinion leaders keep stoking fears about the government using census data to steal from or perhaps even round up law-abiding citizens, I am concerned that mentally unstable individuals will commit further acts of violence against census-takers next year. Republicans should condemn the hatemongers and make clear that the census is not only permitted, but required under the Constitution.
MyDD

The gruesome lynching of this Census worker seems to bear a disturbing similarity to some of the worst hate crimes committed across this country. Regardless of what the motive for the killing may have been, why would a murderer(s) take such pains to so blatantly convey anger, fear, and vitriol towards a Census employee? Perhaps because some on the right have created an impression that Census employees are terrifying.
Earlier this summer, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) waged a high-profile, wildly-dishonest campaign against the Census.
ThinkProgress

Others, namely the type to kill a Census worker and string up his body as message to the government, may call it a retraining camp run by the "Feds."
This is the kind of violent event that emerges from a culture of paranoia and unsubstantiated attacks.
Huffington Post

From this profile of the cancer survivor and volunteer, it appears suicide is unlikely. We'll find out. But at some point, unhinged hostility to the federal government, whipped up by the Becks, can become violence. That's what Pelosi was worried about.
Andrew Sullivan

Send the body to Glenn Beck…Is it possible that the time has come for the FCC to consider exactly what constitutes screaming fire over the publicly owned airwaves? And what if Mr. Sparkman’s murderer(s) is never found? How many other lunatics will be emboldened to make their own anti-government statement as the voices of Beck, Limbaugh and Dobbs echo in their ears?
Nobody ever intended our public airwaves to be turned over to irresponsible voices. Maybe the time has come for the FCC to worry a bit less about wardrobe malfunctions and a whole lot more about those who would use our airwaves to make a name for themselves at the expense of the public they are suppose to serve–particularly when the expense comes in the form of blood.
True/Slant

We'll keep this in mind, next time the lefties accuse conservatives of fomenting paranoia.

UPDATE III: Donald Douglas at American Power calls out some lefty fearmongers, including the genuinely demented Larisa Alexandrovna, who seems to be trying to cheat Sully out of his Batsh*t Crazy Blogger Of The Year honors.

UPDATE IV: Bob Belvedere has a roundup at Camp of the Saints, and Darleen Click at Protein Wisdom links a McClatchy story that gets it wrong:

The bizarre details of the death caused a firestorm of media coverage and widespread speculation on the Internet, including that someone angry at the federal government attacked Sparkman as he went door to door, gathering census information.

That is wrong. It wasn't the "bizare details" that caused the "widespread circulation," it was an anonymous source -- an unauthorized federal law enforcement official -- who fed the "anti-government sentiment" meme to Devlin Barrett of the Associated Press D.C. bureau.

The Sept. 23 AP article (lead byline for Barrett, with Jeffrey McMurray reporting from Kentucky) was the spark that ignited the "media firestorm," and if the Associated Press doesn't name the source of that bogus leak, maybe Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell can call for a congressional investigation.

The First Amendment doesn't grant federal officials the right to lie to reporters. A good reporter never burns his sources, but a good source never burns a reporter, and this unauthorized leaker fed Barrett a lie.

UPDATE V: Drew M. at AOSHQ accurately predicted the liberal blog reaction:

They'll pretend it never happened or better yet they knew it all along and this is just a rightwing attempt to smear them. The poor dears are always correct and the victims.

Dave Weigel linked me (good) but couldn't resist taking another shot at Michelle Bachmann (bad).

Clayton Cramer kept his powder dry. Reaganite Republican says the left was actually "hoping for a case of reactionary violence against a federal employee to exploit for propaganda purposes."

Exactly. Democrats wanted Bill Sparkman to be to Fox News what Matthew Shepard was to homophobia -- a symbolic victim of right-wing media to justify re-implementation of the Fairness Doctrine.

Of course, you'll never get them to admit that, but we know it's true, in the same way the Left knew that Glenn Beck and the 9/12ers were responsible for Sparkman's death.

UPDATE VI: Da Tech Guy mentions the ugliest thought about this sad story:

Mr. Sparkman was counting on the media blaming the right for his death for his scam to work. He intentionally tried to frame us for his murder!
As a rule it isn't proper to speak ill of the dead, but I'm just amazed that the dead was trying to speak ill of us. What a dishonorable act!

Stop the ACLU has a round-up and I'm pushing deadline for the American Spectator, so let's let a Clay County resident have the last word:

Many people felt the speculation and coverage of the death played on Appalachian stereotypes and gave Clay County an undeserved black eye.
"Everybody was saying, 'It's bad, but why are they saying this without letting the investigation go forward?' " said state Sen. Robert Stivers, a Republican who lives in the county.
Many in the media owe the county an apology, Stivers said.

Good luck collecting that apology, senator. Being liberal means never having to say you're sorry.

NEWS ALERT: Kentucky State Police Will Announce Sparkman Investigation Result UPDATE: Official: It Was Suicide

UPDATE 2:15 p.m.: It's now official: Bill Sparkman committed suicide. So much for "Southern populist terrorism" -- and the credibility of Andrew Sullivan. So much for "Send the body to Glenn Beck" -- and the credibility of Rick Ungar.

UPDATE 2:40 p.m.: The official report:

Frankfort, Ky.) -- The Kentucky State Police Post 11 in London, with the assistance of the FBI, the U.S. Forest Service, the State Medical Examiner's Office and the Clay County Coroner's Office, has concluded the investigation into the death of William E. Sparkman, Jr.
The investigation, based upon evidence and witness testimony, has concluded that Mr. Sparkman died during an intentional, self-inflicted act that was staged to appear as a homicide. While all the details of the investigation will not be released at this time, the unusual level of attention and speculation attributed to Mr. Sparkman's death necessitates this release of information.
The investigation indicates that Mr. Sparkman died of asphyxiation/strangulation at the same location where he was discovered in Clay County, Ky.
Despite the fact that Mr. Sparkman was found hands, feet and mouth bound with duct tape, rope around his neck and the word "FED" written on his chest, analysis of the evidence determined Mr. Sparkman's death was self-inflicted. A thorough examination of evidence from the scene, to include DNA testing, as well as examination of his vehicle and his residence resulted in the determination that Mr. Sparkman, alone, handled the key pieces of evidence with no indications of any other persons involved.
Witness statements, which are deemed credible, indicate Mr. Sparkman discussed ending his own life and these discussions matched details discovered during the course of the investigation. It was learned that Mr. Sparkman had discussed recent federal investigations and the perceived negative attitudes toward federal entities by some residents of Clay County. It was also discovered during the investigation that Mr. Sparkman had recently secured two life insurance policies for which payment for suicide was precluded.
All tips and leads, including those from the public, were thoroughly investigated but were found to be inconsistent with any known facts or evidence.
It is the conclusion of the Kentucky State Police, the FBI, the U.S. Forest Service, the State Medical Examiner's Office, and the Clay County Coroner's Office that Mr. Sparkman died in an intentional, self-inflicted act that was staged to appear as a homicide.

UPDATE 2:50 p.m.: Michelle Malkin hasn't forgotten, and Dan Riehl says Sparkman may even have faked cancer.

UPDATE 5:30 p.m.: With perfect consistency, Allahpundit (a) arrives three hours late to the story and (b) doesn't link me, even though (c) I filed a 4,000-word article about my Kentucky trip in the Hot Air Green Room.

That report, you'll note, was intended to be Part 1 of a series, but I never finished the second part. Why? Because under no circumstance will Allah ever headline or front-page anything I do in the Green Room. At some point, the perpetual non-linkage sends a message: "Don't even bother trying."

Allah Hates Me. Because I Suck.

PREVIOUSLY (1:05 p.m.): A 2 p.m. press conference has been announced. It is believed that KSP and FBI have concluded that census worker Bill Sparkman's death was suicide. My friend Morgan Bowling of the Manchester (Ky.) Enterprise, who has covered this story from the beginning, sent me the KSP press release.

UPDATE 1:27 p.m.: Associated Press and CBS report the press conference, without mentioning how their own irresponsible reporting effectively libeled Clay County, Ky., as a dangerous hotbed of right-wing violence:

An Associated Press report said the FBI was "investigating whether anti-government sentiment" played a role in Sparkman's death. Law enforcement officials criticized that story, but the liberal blogosphere seized on it as proving that conservatives had fomented a killing rage among the yokels.
"Send the body to Glenn Beck," Internet pundit Rick Ungar proclaimed Thursday, also indicting Minnesota Rep. Michelle Bachmann (a Republican who had warned that census data could be abused) among right-wingers presumed complicit in Sparkman's murder.
Saturday, the Atlantic Monthly's Andrew Sullivan fretted over "the most worrying possibility," namely that Sparkman's death was "Southern populist terrorism whipped up by the GOP and its Fox and talk radio cohorts."

Well, you biased bastards, I have not forgotten the perfidious role you played here, and you will not escape blame for your journalistic malpractice.

UPDATE 2 p.m.: Yes, we remember all those headlines at Memeorandum. Yes, Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Ungar we remember all your irresponsible speculation. The people of Clay County, Ky., await your apologies.