Demagogue

Well, not exactly. In fact, now that I think about it, you might have a hard time getting some major newspapers to print a correction in circumstances like this. But that's not how it should be, in my layman's opinion.

My recent post on the murder of a federal judge's husband and mother noted that the suspect was a white supremacist. I suppose that was literally correct; at the time, suspicion had been directed toward him. But it turns out that the culprit (at least according to his suicide note) was a disappointed medical malpractice litigant.

Anyone who has worked in and around trial courts will recognize the pathetic but occasionally frightening figure, the wacky litigant who thinks the whole world is out to get him and keeps filing increasingly frivolous law suits, most of which complain about the allegedly wrongful dismissal of previous suits. As in this case, these people generally seem to have a genuine grievance--they really believe an injustice has been done to them and they're trying to get what they think is a fair remedy--and it's often easy to empathize with them. But they can be scary, and, very occasionally, they can turn to violence.

My apologies to the white supremacist community.