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Shouting "tyrant!" at Michael Muskasey, did Washington Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders intend to cause fear of assassination?

Washington Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders confesses that he was the one who shouted "Tyrant! You are a tyrant!" at Attorney General Michael Mukasey, during Mukasey's speech at a Federalist Society dinner:

"Frankly, everybody in the room was applauding or sometimes laughing, and I thought, 'I've got to stand up and say something.' And I did," Sanders told The Seattle Times Tuesday. "I stood up and said, 'Tyrant,' then I sat down again, then I left."

It wasn't until the next morning ? when he turned on the TV in his hotel room ? that Sanders learned what happened after he departed: Mukasey, later in his speech, began slurring his words, slumped at the podium and passed out.

Mukasey didn't faint immediately upon hearing those words, so maybe you think it's hard to pin the fainting on Sanders. But consider how stressful it might be to hear "Tyrant! You are a tyrant!" shouted from a crowd like that.

The words immediately call to mind "sic semper tyrannis":

The phrase is a shortened version of Sic semper evello mortem Tyrannis, which translated means "Thus always death comes to tyrants." ...

The phrase is originally attributed to Marcus Junius Brutus, the central figure in the assassination of Julius Caesar on March 15, 44 BC.... In American history, because of the association with the assassination of Caesar, John Wilkes Booth reportedly shouted the phrase after shooting United States President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865. Timothy McVeigh was wearing a T-shirt with this phrase and a picture of Lincoln on it when he was arrested on April 19, 1995, the day of the Oklahoma City Bombing.

An unknown person in a large crowd shouts "tyrant" at a political leader. If he knows history, it should strike fear into his heart. It would feel like the prelude to assassination. And yet, you would keep speaking. Nothing has happened yet, so of course, you go on, terror gnawing at your consciousness...

... men?s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth....

Full post as published by Althouse on November 26, 2008 (boomark / email).