THUNDER IN MASSACHUSETTS – AT 8:41 A.M. ET:  We've been following the truly bizarre case of the Harvard-educated Alabama professor who shot three colleagues dead on Friday, apparently after being denied tenure. 

We don't normally "do murder" here, but the implications of this case stretch far beyond Alabama.  As previously reported, the professor, Amy Bishop, shot her brother to death in 1986 in liberal Braintree, Massachusetts, a shooting officially ruled an "accident," even though she pulled the trigger of a shotgun three times. 

Bishop was later a suspect in the attempted pipe bombing of a Harvard professor with whom she was having a dispute.  Cleared again, with no one ultimately charged.

To demonstrate the implications, the case may now claim the career of a Massachusetts Democratic congressman, who was district attorney at the time of the "brother shooting."  The Boston Globe reports:

US Representative William Delahunt said yesterday that he is considering retiring from his congressional seat representing the South Shore and Cape Cod, although he portrayed his deliberations as routine and said they are not related to challenges from Republicans who are energized by Scott Brown’s upset victory in last month’s special Senate election.

But being linked to the 1986 shooting, which he failed to prosecute, could push a fella over the edge.

Delahunt, one of the most left-leaning members of Congress, who has an uncomfortably close relationship with Venezuelan thug Hugo Chavez, has been repeatedly accused of being soft on crime.  The 1986 case of Amy Bishop's fatal shooting of her brother will now almost certainly be reopened in light of Bishop's alleged murder of three on Friday.  Hard to see how Delahunt can come out well.

Retirement, on a Congressional pension, has its benefits.  The belief of political observers in Massachusetts is that Republicans have at least a decent shot at picking up his generally liberal district, but it may take a Scott Brown-quality candidate to seal the deal.

February 16, 2010