Particularly since the latest report is of a suspicious powder in an envelope sent to the RNC

Is it possible that the ricin attack on Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist was a bit of nefarious political strategery from the Bush administration?

How long? Less than half an hour.

I don't link to 'Hesiod Theogeny' and his site 'Counterspin Central', but in his first post today, timestamp 09:31:48, he seems to blame the ricin on disgruntled Teamsters. He admits to posting without bothering to check first whether Frist had anything to do with the legislation disgruntling (yes, I know that's not really a word) the truckers.

Some of his cretinous commenters do indeed suggest (without quite asserting) that Bush was responsible for today's ricin attack, though they can't seem to agree as to whether it's supposed to distract the easily-led public from the Democratic primaries or the budget or something else. One seems to think that Ariel Sharon runs Hamas and schedules terror attacks for his own convenience.

Sorry, I should have written "less than an hour". 'Hesiod' asserts that a previous use of ricin by truckers in Georgia last October "pretty much rules out islamic terrorists", without saying whether he's ruling it out only for the Georgia incident or for this one, too. (Weasely rhetoric or simple verbal incompetence? Hard to say.)

It was 10:02 before one of his commenters tried to pin it on Bush.

They already started over at DU

The story was first posted there last night at 8:45PM. They've since begun their usual craziness.

The incompetence is Weevil's.

First off, ricin in the form found in Frist's office is not harmful unless the staffer ate it, snorted it, or injected it. Thus, it's pretty safe to say the person(s) who sent it wasn't looking to inflict casualties (as in the anthrax cases) but to get media attention.

Second, a similar ricin attempt was made about a month ago by someone claiming to be upset at trucking regulations.

Rightwingers need to do something about their persecution complex. Something other than whine uncontrollably.

Leftwingers need to do something about their propensity to see conspiracies against them around every corner and under every state primary (oops I mean under every rock.) Something other than to behave as crazed finger pointers and to whine uncontrollably. Sheez

Don't worry about JadeGold, jane m. He (or she?) is just a common troll who goes around dozens of websites telling obvious lies about anyone on the right. In this case, it offers:

1. An irrelevancy. Five people died from inhaling anthrax, so the fact that ricin also has to be inhaled or ingested to kill is not much comfort. I suppose if JadeGold got some in the mail, it would say 'no big deal'?

2. A redundancy. I had already noted the possible trucker connection.

3. Gratuitous insults that apply far more to itself than to me. The ones with the persecution complex are commenters who assume that Bush arranged the ricin mailings. I don't claim to know who sent the stuff, or why. I certainly hope we'll find out some day, and find out who sent the anthrax, too.

Once again, Weevil is not telling the truth. The anthrax attack was much more dangerous because death and injury occured by inhaling it, as well as coming into contact with it. One could inhale this non-aerosolized ricin, in small amounts, and not be worse for the wear.

First of all, I never claimed that ricin was more poisonous than anthrax, or as poisonous as anthrax. I'm no toxicologist.

I do know that most of the people who were exposed to anthrax in fall of 2001 did not come down with symptoms, and most of those who did eventually recovered. As I recall, everyone who died was either over 50 or a smoker or both.

I also know that CBS and others report that the amount of ricin required to kill an adult is 1 milligram, which is one 28,350th of an ounce. That is a microscopic speck of ricin, and if JadeGold can't figure out how easily someone handling an envelope with a teaspoon or two of ricin in it could get that much in his mouth or nose, then JadeGold is a -- I'd better stop there, since this is not my site.

It appears that one cannot safely inhale ricin "in small amounts" unless small amounts are defined as less than one 28,350th of an ounce. Who is the liar here? As usual, JadeGold.

Of course, JG is at pains to evade the main point of our host's post, which is that many on the left are blaming the ricin attack on Bush.

I would also note that the British just last month arrested 5 or 7 suspected AQ in London who had ricin in their possession. Wouldn't immediately jump to a domestic source conclusion..... or a non-Islamist conclusion either.

Damn truckers! First they try to run us down on the interstates.....

London ricin arrests were jan 03 not 04

more on London 03:
In London, a plethora of arrests are made after police supposedly discover ingredients used to make the deadly ricin poison. Many suspects are later released and doubts emerge as to whether any actual ricin components were seized. The Algerian terrorist ring was said to have obtained the poison from a cave in Afghanistan, where large quantities were found. To know this was false took just a brief glance back in the archives and a story of March 2002. Under the headline ‘Britain accused on terror lab claim - Story of find in Afghan cave 'was made up' to justify sending marines’ – the London Observer reported,
“Britain was accused last night of falsely claiming that al-Qaeda terrorists had built a 'biological and chemical weapons' laboratory in Afghanistan to justify the deployment of 1,700 Royal Marines to fight there. The allegation follows a Downing Street briefing by a senior official to newspapers on Friday which claimed US forces had discovered a biological weapons laboratory in a cave in eastern Afghanistan after fighting near the city of Gardez this month.”   
 
The White House had to publicly admit that the story was fabricated to avoid deeper embarrassment because there was no actual evidence to support the claim. So the original source of the ricin was in actual fact based on a foundation of total fabrication.
After a while the blatantly fake terror alerts that never preceded a terror attack were beginning to lose their gravity. People largely ignored them and were not imbued by fear. The next government threat had to be backed up by physical action. 
source http://www.prisonplanet.com/analysis_watson_021703_faketerror.html
By Paul Joseph Watson