Novelist: Self-immolator who wanted to kill Rumsfeld “a pretty normal well-balanced guy”

posted at 1:39 pm on December 17, 2006 by Allahpundit
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The Freepers dug this up. Barely worth a mention, but on a slow Sunday before Christmas? Gold.

Remember Malachi Ritscher, the nut who lit himself on fire to protest the war after he neglected to stab Don Rumsfeld in the heart when he had the chance? The left’s doing its best to make sure you do. Here’s the latest reminder, courtesy of novelist Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu:

I did a little research of my own. It turns out, that Ritscher was a musician and recording engineer known in the Chicago Jazz community. From what people said about him and what I read about him, he seemed like a pretty normal well-balanced guy.

Well, as well balanced as someone who incinerates himself can be. The AP story about him last month also noted that he was depressive, alcoholic, and, according to his own son, “mentally ill.” But never mind all that. What about the bit about killing Rummy? That wasn’t mentioned in the AP article. For that you have to go to the suicide note on his website, where he wrote:

I have had one previous opportunity to serve my country in a meaningful way – at 8:05 one morning in 2002 I passed Donald Rumsfeld on Delaware Avenue and I was acutely aware that slashing his throat would spare the lives of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people. I had a knife clenched in my hand, and there were no bodyguards visible; to my deep shame I hesitated, and the moment was past.

2002. Before the war in Iraq had even begun.

But maybe Okorafor-Mbachu doesn’t know that. Maybe she never saw the suicide note.

…Except she did. In fact, not only has she seen it, she includes the URL in her op-ed:

One has to search hard to locate the suicide note Ritscher embedded in his Web site, Chicago Rash Audio Potential (www.savagesound.com), a compilation of announcements, postings, photographs and artwork. From Ritscher’s suicide note: (www.savagesound.com/gallery99.htm): “I refuse to finance the mass murder of innocent civilians…What is one more life thrown away in this sad and useless national tragedy? If one death can atone for anything, in any small way, to say to the world: I apologize for what we have done to you, I am ashamed for the mayhem and turmoil caused by my country.”

So there you go. Normal and well balanced. And by left-wing standards, he was.

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