GOP jokesters

I'm sure Maine's crackpot Gov. Paul LePage's expressed desire to blow up the local newspapers was meant to be taken as a joke, but it's not funny. While he was at photo op, manning a fighter jet simulator in the local Pratt & Whitney factory, he told the crowd, "I want to find the Portland Press Herald building and blow it up."

And if it was meant as an offhand remark, one wonders why he repeated it twice:

Later in the event, a television reporter from WMTW asked LePage again if he had any targets. The governor answered: "The Press Herald and the Bangor Daily News."

This was after the Bangor Daily News posted about the first "joke." This isn't the first time he's expressed contempt for the press. He does it regularly.

LePage has had a tense relationship with the media -- newspapers in particular -- since he took office in January 2011.

At least twice, he has told students that his biggest fear is newspapers. He once said that buying a copy of a newspaper is like paying someone to lie to you.

Because facts have a well known liberal bias and quoting him accurately is a threat to his freedom. Or something.

I'm sure he didn't mean he actually would blow up the newspapers. Not so sure he really wouldn't like to if he thought he could get away with it. But the real danger of this kind of violent ideation by the highest officeholder in his state is he was elected by well armed sovereign citizen types who might want to do their hero a favor and blow up the buildings for him. This kind of reckless "joking" only encourages the truly unhinged to act out violent fantasies. One hopes the good people of Maine will realize their error and get this man off the public stage in the next election.