Paul Waldman wants to know what is it about Midland, TX that “produces rapist-murderers?” He writes:

Let’s cast our minds back to 2002, when the country learned of John Walker Lindh, a young man who left home in California after converting to Islam to live in Afghanistan with the Taliban. When he was captured by American forces after September 11, conservatives knew what had led him astray: the fact that he grew up in supposedly permissive Marin county, north of San Francisco….Shelby Steele of the Hoover Institution intoned in the Wall Street Journal that Lindh “was prepared for this seduction not just by the wispy relativism of Marin County, but also by a much broader post-’60s cultural liberalism (more than political liberalism) that gave his every step toward treason a feel of authenticity and authority.”

What does this have to do with Midland? Well, Waldman continues by applying that same logic to Steven Green, the ex-soldier accused of raping and murdering an Iraqi girl and her family, who happens to hail from Midland, TX.

Just what is it about Midland that produces rapist-murderers? Is it the stifling regimentation of a conservative town that twists young men’s minds into psychopathy? Is it the you’re-on-you’re-own brand of conservatism that makes people think they can rape and murder teenage girls without consequence? Is it the “traditional values” conservatism that devalues women’s lives that turns boys into rapist-murderers?

Both Waldman and Liberadio “eagerly await the analysis from conservative pundits on the effects a youth in Midland had on Steven Green”.

This post was written by Mary Mancini