In a sad, tragic and bizarre event last Friday, a former student returned to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and drove into a heavily-travelled pedestrian and hang-out area of campus called "the Pit", where he proceeded to try and mow down students.
He said that he was doing it in an attempt to gain redress for the deaths of Muslims around the world.
Today, Monday, College Republicans, along with anti-Muslim hate groups, organized a protest on campus. They demanded that the incident be labelled a terrorist attack.
Before I continue, let me make one thing clear. I do not defend what this obviously unbalanced man did. He hit a person in a wheelchair, a person who could not run from him. And my husband was travelling through the exact spot very close to the time when the incident took place. He could have been hurt or worse. What happened is a criminal act and the person who committed the crime should be punished.
For some reason, the campus Republicans have decided that they need to call this a terrorist attack, and they need to protest and to force everyone else to call it a terrorist attack. I have no idea why these Republican students decided to join forces with hate groups and make this strange demand, unless it was to polilticize a tragedy.
I do not know what the full story is.
But I do know this.
Bush says that we haven't had a terrorist attack in this country since 9-11, and all because he's worked hard to protect us. If this is a terrorist attack, then he obviously hasn't worked hard enough.
And Bush says that we are fighting "them" "over there" so that we won't have to fight "them" "over here." Yet, if the perpetrator of these acts is to be taken at his word--and Young Republicans seem to want to do just that--he is attacking us "over here" PRECISELY BECAUSE we are "over there."
Frankly, if Republicans and anti-Muslim hate groups want to call this a terrorist attack, I say Bring It On.