The story of the Bruce E. Ivins, the Ft. Detrick bio-weapons researcher suspected in the 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five, does not add up.  We’re being told he committed suicide by overdosing on Tylenol with codeine.

The anthrax attacks were the cement that bonded America to the War on Islamic Terror in Iraq theme being pushed by the Cheneyburton maladministration long before 9/11.  Remember?  Powdered weaponized anthrax sent to two Democratic senators and a network news anchor (and the Enquirer, to help scare the “low-info” voters), the Capitol shut down and all of Congress terrorized, John W. McCain positing that anthrax came from Iraq, ABC News quoting “four well-placed sources” that tests showed the anthrax contained bentonite, a signature of Saddam’s arsenal, when no such tests were ever conducted, and after they were, found no bentonite.

The Washington Post reports that Ivins didn’t even have access to this powdered form of anthrax.  How did he get ahold of it?  How was he having those containment accidents without anyone at one of our most secure facilities speaking up or noticing?  Who were ABC News’s four “well-placed sources”?  What did John McCain know?

Do you wonder if in the afterlife, Bruce Ivins and Lee Oswald are comparing notes?

These latest items make the suicide story even harder to believe:

Anthrax Scientist’s Therapist Was “Scared To Death” Of Him, Says Scientist Tried To Poison People
FREDERICK, Md. — Bruce E. Ivins, the late microbiologist suspected in the 2001 anthrax attacks, had attempted to poison people and his therapist said she was “scared to death” of him, according to court testimony that emerged Saturday.

Social worker Jean Duley testified at a court hearing in Frederick on July 24 in a successful bid for a protective order from Ivins _ who five days later committed suicide _ that he “actually attempted to murder several other people.”

“As far back as the year 2000, the respondent has actually attempted to murder several other people, either through poisoning. He is a revenge killer. When he feels that he’s been slighted or has had _ especially toward women _ he plots and actually tries to carry out revenge killings,” Duley said.

She added that Ivins “has been forensically diagnosed by several top psychiatrists as a sociopathic, homicidal killer. I have that in evidence. And through my working with him, I also believe that to be very true.”

So, then, at the US military’s most secure base, handling the most deadly of biotoxins, subject to numerous intense security screenings, this homicidal sociopath had top security clearance and was allowed to work with anthrax?  If I may borrow from SNL’s Seth & Amy, “Really!?!”

A misogynistic revenge killer who lashes out against those who slighted him, so he sends anthrax to two male Democratic senators and a male TV anchor.  And because they slighted him, the natural thing to do was to write notes attributing the mailings to Islamic extremists - yeah, that’ll teach ‘em to mess with Bruce E. Ivins!

Your best benefit-of-the-doubt explanation here is extreme incompetence in security at our WMD facilities leading to a domestic terrorism attack that was purposefully lied about from deep within the Cheneyburton maladministration.  (File it alongside the rest of the benefit-of-the-doubt files: that FEMA was just incompetent during Katrina and there wasn’t an agenda to flood poor black people out of high-value real estate; that NORAD was just incompetent during 9/11 in not responding quickly enough to four jumbo-jets nearly simultaneously making unauthorized U-turns in the northeastern corridor; that CIA was merely incompetent in force-feeding Iraqi WMD assertions down the nation’s throat prior to invading; that rogue enlisted rednecks from West Virginia thought up shit-smearing and naked-stacking prisoners at Abu Ghraib for fun; you’ll have no problem finding the file, it’s that round one in the corner.)

Or do we tread the dark conspiracy path - that sources within our Executive conspired to send weaponized anthrax to opponents in the Legislative and the media to terrorize us into invading Iraq, and now they’ve tied up that loose end by “suiciding” a convenient patsy?