Last week RedState noted – and condemned – what was suspected to be a politically-motivated firebombing of a Democratic congressman’s office. In addition to being concerned about the idea of Molotov cocktails being added to American political discourse, we here were also concerned at the media blackout apparently being put on the incident – even though an arrest had been made.  There were, of course, a number of possible legitimate reasons for said blackout; the most obvious being that there might have been some sort of larger… activities that this could have been linked to.  After all, firebombing a Congressional office is a serious crime; it is, in fact, domestic terrorism. You have to take these things seriously: for all we knew, the FBI was investigating a larger conspiracy.

Fortunately, the attack may have been just a disgruntled Talking Points Memo commenter/diarist who hadn’t gotten paid by the campaign.

If true, imagine my shock.

Gateway Pundit has the details: the short version is that the guy that the police had arrested is allegedly one Chris Powers, a progressive canvasser (and insufficiently paid for it) for Russ Carnahan – and who apparently posts diaries at Talking Points Memo under the name “Ripper McCord.”  Now, it’s important to remember that the man was arrested and let go, which means of course that there’s no proof that he threw a Molotov into his former employer’s office in response to not getting paid – but it’s interesting that speculation about the origins of the attack by the local Left showed notably less delicacy in blaming the Right for the incident.

It’s also interesting that TPM – and the rest of the quote-unquote ‘A List’ of the netroots – didn’t really cover this story in the first place.  Were they tipped off?  I mean, Powers could have told Josh Marshall, and Marshall could have passed this around to whatever they’re using in place of Journolist these days, and a thousand angry screeds would die a-borning…

Moe Lane

[UPDATE] Welcome, Instapundit readers.