DID RICHARD RODGERS HAVE HIS BACK? :

Lone gunman kills Dutch far-Right leader (Ambrose Evans Pritchard and David Graves, 07/05/2002, Daily Telegraph)

Mr Fortuyn had recently expressed fears for his safety. A few weeks ago, protesters threw two cream pies laced with urine in his face.
"It's a scandal that the Justice Department did not take action after the pie incident," said his lawyer, Oscar Hammerstein. [...]

Mr Fortuyn had occasional bodyguards, but his lawyer said he did not have enough money to hire round-the-clock armed protection.

Harry Mens, a close friend who talked to Mr Fortuyn on the telephone yesterday morning, said Mr Fortuyn was worried about threats made in recent days against him.

There's a strange kind of European arrogance that we've all become especially familiar with in recent months--it holds out the notion that they are advanced and civilized nations, while we uncultured Americans are a bunch of yahoos needing their guidance. So several days ago when that gunman opened fire in East Germany you got man-in-the-street interviews with people saying that stuff like that was only supposed to happen in America, even though recent studies show Europe to be more prone to violent crime than are we. And today that arrogance may have contributed to the murder of Pim Fortuyn, an extremely controversial, openly gay, racial demagogue, who seems not to have had any police protection despite repeated threats against his life. Folks who put on haughty airs and claim, "It can't happen here", are damn near begging for it. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 6, 2002 10:27 PM