Former Bush Aide Guns Down Child, Self

[MrBenchley]

No coincidence that the worst administration in history is also the most gun-crazy....

"A former Bush administration official, after arguing violently with his wife Thursday night, shot and killed his 12-year-old son inside their McLean home, then turned a shotgun on himself and committed suicide, Fairfax County police said.
William H. Lash III, 45, was an assistant secretary of commerce from 2001 until last year, then returned to teach at George Mason University Law School in Arlington, where he had begun as a professor in 1994. His wife, Sharon K. Zackula, fled the house before the shootings, and police said yesterday they were not sure what ignited the murder-suicide in a first-floor bedroom.
Daniel D. Polsby, dean of GMU's law school, said, "This thing just doesn't belong to the normal range of human experience, and we're all just heartbroken for his family, his community and for ourselves.""

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/14/AR2006071400502_pf.html

http://www.gunguys.com/?p=1293

Of course, as Gun guys points out, things like this are all too common in the "normal range of human experience" here in the US, thanks to the corrupt gun industry and the GOP. And Polsby is one of the gun lobby's dishonest spokesmen, who has fought long and hard over the years to make sure tragedies like this are common.

[wakeme2008]

1. Maybe I have read too much about Repug Pedophilia but

12 yo boy killed by Repug father.. :shrug:

[mtnester]

2. No, this was a big FU to the wife

not a pedophillia thing. Designed to hurt her as much as possible.

[LionInWinter]

3. Either that or the boy stood up to his father ...

My guess is that he told dear old dad that he wasn't going to be allowed to push his mom around anymore. Dad gets pissed off at "losing" both his wife and his son, fires in a fit of fury, realizes what he's done & fires the second shot.

[Laotra]

5. Yes

These kinds of drunken familycides are not uncommon in my part of the globe either. The guys who do these are usually very possessive, patriarchal types.

[fearthem]

4. An administration comprised of misfits, shoplifters, traitors, murderers.

[LibertyLover]

6. I heard about this on DC's news radio station driving to work

They didn't mention his White House connection. They did mention that the son had autism and seemed to insinuate that Lash had cracked under the strain of caring for the boy. No matter what, it's sad. The mother must be heartsick. I am truly sorry for her.

[KoKo]

7. William Lash goes back to the Reagan Administration. He wasn't

a "small fry." He was involed with "Heartland Institute" a Think Tank working on privitizing Government functions. He was a Yale and Harvard Graduate and one of the African-Americans like Clarence Thomas who have worked their way through the Repug Party to the top levels who have ideologies that differ radically from their Dem Counterparts.

He served Bush on trade with China issues and there's nothing in his history that would explain his freaking out and killing his son and himself. He was a professor at George Mason after he left BushCo in 05 and well liked by his students.

(I did a search on him when this story broke over the weekend, because there seem to be an interesting number of Bush Administration Officials lately have some "personal problems." Philip Merrill in June whose body was found with an anchor rope around his feet and a shotgun wound to the head, and another big gun who died suspiciously (I can't remember there are so many) who died a few weeks ago, Claude Allen who was caught shop lifting (Bush's Chief of Staff, I believe) and others who are under investigation for being on the "take" from private interests. So...many having troubles it's going past coincidence. And, what's odd is the stories are always downplayed by the WaPo and NYT's as "former Bush official" as if no one would care what kind of official they were. The stories last one day and are gone. Must be alot of stress on these folks in the Bush administration with the awful knowledge of what they've done or Bush just hires folks with personal problems that eventually come to a head. :shrug: