St.L Post-Dispatch: Missouri Republican Party was leading a “whisper campaign” Schweich was Jewish

[villager]

<snip>

I have no idea why Schweich killed himself. But for the past several days he had been confiding in me that he planned to accuse the chairman of the Missouri Republican Party, John Hancock, with leading a “whisper campaign” among donors that he, Schweich, was Jewish.

He wasn’t, which is to say that he attended an Episcopal church, but doesn’t mean he wasn’t proud of his Jewish heritage, passed down from his grandfather.

Missouri is the state that gave us Frazier Glenn Miller, the raging racist who last year killed three people at a Jewish community center in Kansas City. It’s the state in which on the day before Schweich died, the Anti-Defamation League reported on a rise of white supremacist prison gangs in the state.

Division over race and creed is real in Missouri Republican politics, particularly in some rural areas. Schweich knew it. It’s why all week long his anger burned.
His grandfather taught him to never give an inch where anti-Semitism was concerned, Schweich told me. His current political consultants — Hancock had been one early in Schweich’s career — told him to let it go. It’s not good politics to pick a fight with the party chairman.

But Schweich was no ordinary politician. He burst onto the scene by writing a scathing critique of U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt, suggesting the Washington insider would be a bad choice for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in 2010. Blunt outflanked Schweich, who decided to run for auditor instead. At the time of his death, he had his sights set on another office — governor — that was likely also out of reach.

Why? Because all the traits that made Schweich a good auditor made him a lousy politician.

<snip>

http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/tony-messenger/messenger-from-voicemail-to-voicemail-the-short-political-career-of/article_d287e178-0463-53d8-9393-595c9b40dcf5.html

[randys1]

1. I appreciate that he might have been a halfway decent person in a political party where

decency is considered a weakness, but belonging to the GOP is inexcusable.

I would love to have the raging racist filth that did this exposed, however.

[villager]

3. Wouldn't that require Repubbies holding their own responsible?

That never, ever happens. It's all projection, with them.

[Behind the Aegis]

2. And still they come for us.

Of course, there are many who don't find this type of behavior all that concerning. The stench is overwhelming.

[villager]

4. Yes. The fact that that was a "crime" to be "whispered" about...

...tells you exactly how "far" we've come.

[randome]

5. You know he was likely mentally ill, right?

Although the Republican party conducting a whisper campaign is hardly a stretch of the imagination, the only evidence for this is what a man said to a journalist shortly before he shot himself in the head.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"If you're bored then you're boring." -Harvey Danger[/center][/font][hr]

[villager]

6. You know the guy who wrote the article knew him better than you did, right?

His speculation about the man's inner life doubtless carries more weight than yours.

Nonetheless, we might posit that suicide is generally not the act of a "well" person.

[ND-Dem]

7. your evidence for his 'mental illness' is -- what, exactly? that he committed suicide? kind of

circular, don't you think?

[randome]

9. The odds favor a mental illness.

I'm certainly no expert.
http://depts.washington.edu/mhreport/facts_suicide.php

The great majority of people who experience a mental illness do not die by suicide. However, of those who die from suicide, more than 90 percent have a diagnosable mental disorder.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]You have to play the game to find out why you're playing the game. -Existenz[/center][/font][hr]

[ND-Dem]

11. "diagnosable" doesn't = "diagnosed". and it's relatively easy to diagnose ex post facto if

suicide is one of the criteria.

and now we have the 'death with dignity' laws coming in. so I guess suicides are likely to be mentally ill -- unless they're physician and government assisted.

[randome]

12. Which is why I used the words 'likely' and 'favor'.

I agree with you that 'death with dignity' is much different from suicide as the result of a whispering campaign or whatever else was going on in this guy's head.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Everything is a satellite to some other thing.[/center][/font][hr]

[ND-Dem]

13. how do you know whether "what was going on in this guy's head" was symptomatic of mental

illness?

and how do you know people choosing government-sponsored "death with dignity" don't have something "going on" in their heads?

[KamaAina]

8. What the...

[villager]

10. Not that this would actually *surprise* you about today's GOP...

...in action...