Story Emerging on Austin Crash

While news outlets have been careful in the reporting of the small plane crash into an office building in Austin this morning, the pilot's anti-IRS motive has come into focus.

Joe Stack, the Texas man who this morning, say law enforcement officials, flew a plane into an Austin building that houses a local IRS office, appears to be the author of a lengthy online screed, lashing out at the IRS, the federal government, and big corporations, and referring to his coming death.

The rant reflects many of the same populist, anti-government, anti-tax, and anti-corporate themes that have surfaced around the country over the last year.

Stack's Austin home was on fire this morning, at roughly the same time that he's said to have crashed his plane, according to the Austin-American Statesman.

The paper adds that an IRS revenue collection agent who worked on the building's second floor is missing, according to another revenue agent who worked in the building.

Obviously Stack was not a mentally healthy person, and he was embittered at capitalism, including crony capitalism, and health insurance companies and the government. Reading larger political motives into this action would be preliminary, until more information emerges about whether he actually has been involved in any political movement like the teabaggers. But it should inject a bit of caution into the anti-government flame-throwers on the right.