I was trying to stay out of this. Honest. I am from California, not Alaska. I don’t even vote in Alaska. Joe Miller is a headache, but he’s not my headache. I got enough problems with Carly so what if I almost bankrupted one of California’s biggest computer companies, vote for me so I can play with YOUR money too! Fiorina.

But then all the stories erupted about Joe’s security team arresting a reporter at a public event and the dog in me woke up and started sniffing.

(click each image to enlarge)

Meet Mouse. Mouse is one of the Drop Zone Security Guards who may or may not be personally assigned to Miller, but he is part of the security team so it’s likely (if he wasn’t actually on today’s detail) he’ll pull a shift with the candidate.

Mouse is an ex-marine with an attitude. He’s got self-inflicted holes in his head into which he sticks little sparkly bits of metal, and drawings on his arms from having encouraged some stranger to attack him with pointy needles,  most likely the result of a bored or drunken stupor while stationed overseas.

Mouse owns at least two hats that display the word SKIN in artsy-fartsybubble letters. I’m thinking he’s a skinhead wannabe but can’t bring himself to actually shave his head like the big boys. On the other hand, it could just be a pun about where he works on the weekends.

This is Mouse at work. When he’s not on private detail, or armed and working as a bounty hunter for the Drop Zone, or selling guns to other war vets at the Drop Zone’s run-down survivalist shack, he’s a part-time bouncer at a strip club in Anchorge. Nothing wrong with that. Strippers have to eat too. I tended bar in a strip club once. Rough crowds. Nice girls though. They deserve the peace of mind given by a bouncer’s presence.

But this… this is the picture I want you to see. I especially want you to read the caption. It’s from Mouse himself. It’s how he thinks of the enemy. It’s how all militia think of the enemy. And quite frankly, in a military setting it’s appropriate.

But.

Being part of a security detail assigned to babysit a political wannabe in a state that has fewer citizens than the smallest state in America and on American soil – it’s not appropriate at all. And I have a problem, while looking at the tats and piercings and hand-jive cryp signals, thinking this kid or any of the Drop Zone ex-military crew assigned to Joe Miller at the townhall meeting on Sunday is mature enough to mentally distinguish an armed enemy from a loud civilian.

And then I wonder if maybe, just maybe, the camera held by the Alaska Dispatch reporter served as a visual trigger for these militia-minded security guards who seem to always have one foot back in an armed conflict and if they – all of them – reacted to the metal Tony hopfinger was carrying today as if it had been a bazooka and not a camera at all.

There are reasons, good, valid reasons why reputable security companies and law enforcement agencies go to great lengths to carefully scrutinize their applicants and try to filter out those ex-military personnel who either wouldn’t or just couldn’t put a war behind them.

So tonight, I don’t care if you’re a Republican, a Democrat, an Independent or worship goats in the woods – Joe Miller is a clear and present danger to all Americans. His incessant need to exercise poor judgement on every aspect of his campaign, including today’s choice of militia-minded bruisers to act as ‘bodyguards’ at a local town meeting – should be viewed as a blueprint for the complete disaster this man will unleash on the good citizen’s of Alaska, should he be elected to U.S. Senate.

Don’t elect him. I beg you.

To comment on this post, please scroll up to the title “Joe Miller: An Accident Waiting To Happen” and click on the word comments just beneath.  Thanks, OzMud