Damn The Fact(orpedoe)s, Full Condemnation Ahead!

Tom Maguire has this way of completely dismantling some of the worst of the hysterical hyperbole from the left side of the 'sphere. He uses these inconvenient things called "facts" that you may have heard of. Several bloggers have apparently discovered, as Maguire puts it, that Ann Coulter can successfully bend the space-time continuum and make events happen in the past! I'm not a big fan of Coulter, as I have mentioned several times, but this is just plain funny.

I am not Rick Morans and I would never attempt to encroach on his territory, but here we go - there is no causal connection.  Both Steven D, in his own comments, and Mr. Neiwert, in an UPDATE, acknowledge a tiny flaw in their cause-effect scenario - let's hand the mike to Mr. Neiwert:

NOTE: Yes, it's true that the poisoned cookies were sent in 2005, and Coulter's remark was in January of this year [2006]. The point is this: Coulter is one of the leading luminaries in a sustained program of demonization against liberals and government generally — including so-called "judicial activists" — for several years now.

Yes, well, whatever.  Cookies were also sent to the chiefs of staff of the Army, Navy, and Air Force;  and the director and deputy director of the FBI - has Ms. Coulter specifically, or other righties generally, been demonizing them?

Don't answer!  We can do even better than that in demolishing this particular fact-free edifice.

Let me first applaud teri, commenting at Wizbang, who offered  this:

Probably her real aim was to cause trouble for the people whose return addresses she used. If she just sent threatening notes and unpoisoned cookies, it would not have made enough trouble for her former acquaintences.

Right the first time!  And why do I say that?  Well, unlike my friends in the reality-based community who can simply see evil in the world and know it is caused by righties, I am stuck with Google and Pacer (the US Court search system), and other such tedious time-wasters.

So let's check the sentencing memorandum (8 page .pdf) for Ms. Barbara Joan March.  This starts at the bottom of page six:

Third, the defendant's conduct does not appear to have been motivated by any personal, political or professional animosity toward the intended recipients of the letters. Rather, interviews with the purported senders of the letters, as well as factors cited in the presentence investigation report, suggest that the defendant's conduct likely was motivated by a misplaced anger toward the purported senders of the letters, former friends and colleagues who in the defendant's mind somehow had abandoned or wronged her.1 See Presentence Investigation Report at ¶88. The fact that the defendant chose to mail the letters to high-level public officials in a misguided attempt to cause more harm to the purported senders has increased her sentence by approximately five years.2

Any questions?  This DoJ press release provides a quick summary of the case as well.  From the sentencing memorandum i see that Ms. March spent much of the past twenty years in prison and has previously engaged in bizarre, violent behavior.

In other words, this had nothing to do with Ann Coulter or even with the people the packages were sent to. Is that a rant I see sinking on the horizon?