Shawn Vestal: Idaho web site presents mass killer as a defender of children

Jun. 27—OK — who had "taking up the defense of a quadruple murderer" on their right-wing nut job bingo card?

You win. And decency loses.

In the hours and days following the brutal murder of a mother, grandfather and two teenagers in Kellogg, an Idaho website that fashions itself as "conservative journalism" expended a lot of bluster and balderdash valorizing the killer as a defender of children in a world gone wrong — a good man who would not take it any more!

This manure-spring came from the Idaho Tribune, an online tabloid with a secretive background that rages about drag queens, attacks gay public officials, verbally burns pride flags, and generally stans for the lunatic right in Idaho.

In and of itself, it would probably be best ignored. It is the online equivalent of a muttering, mentally unwell conspiracist warning about microchips in vaccines.

But it is now a sadly vital part of the matrix fueling the descent of Idaho politics into madness — the matrix that has elevated an inexperienced anti-school ideologue into the position of superintendent in West Bonner County School District, dragged North Idaho College to the brink of ruin, welcomed unvarnished bigots into the fold, fueled the demonization of librarians and school teachers as pedophilic groomers, and generally Bundy-fied the Gem State's political landscape.

All of it grows in a garden of angry, dishonest, alternative-reality media — not just the Tribune but a range of other outlets such as the People's Pen and Redoubt News. A celebration of vigilantism is a key feature in this system.

The Kellogg massacre is a gross case in point. A North Idaho man now sits in jail for fatally shooting four neighbors in a Kellogg apartment building.

Majorjon Kaylor confessed to the killings on June 18. That was five days after his wife said one of the victims, 18-year-old Devin Smith, had exposed himself and masturbated in a window within sight of her daughters.

The same set of allegations were made on Facebook before any other information about the killings had come out, and plenty of commenters weighed in to share their view that the victim was a "creep" or a "pervert." The Tribune gleefully copy-pasted these into a story with this headline: "Un-Happy Father's Day: Pervert Killed in Kellogg, Idaho After Police and School Admins Took No Action ..."

In a follow-up story — boasting an interview with the killer's wife in which she described him as "a good man" — the Tribune moderated its tone by referring to the murder victim as an "Alleged Pervert." It also placed the case into a very broad, uh, context.

"Over the past 5 years we have seen mass lawlessness, murder, rioting, and looting go un-punished in almost every single major American city," the Tribune reported.

After offering a half-hearted caveat that it's never right to take the law into your own hands, the piece continued, "Based on our conversation with (Kaylor's wife), it seems very possible that Majorjon's emotions took control over him, and that he may have had a moment of temporary insanity, or an anger induced blackout when he felt that his children were in danger.

"People get passionate when it comes to protecting their kids, but that passion can lead to excesses. This is why it is IMPERATIVE that we ensure a functional Justice system in Idaho, instead of a system that protects perverts, and indoctrinates students into perverse lifestyles."

Ah, yes. Excesses in the defense of children. Who among us can't understand that?

Here is how this defensive maneuver played out, according to the affidavit of probable cause against Kaylor. Five days after the window incident — which was reported to authorities, who were preparing misdemeanor charges of indecent exposure — the neighbors were arguing when Kaylor took his .45-caliber pistol and shot 41-year-old Kenna Guardipee in the temple at close range and shot 65-year-old Kenneth Guardipee in the temple at close range, both outside the apartment building where both families lived. He then entered Guardipee's apartment and shot 16-year-old Aiken Smith in the temple at close range and shot 18-year-old Devin Smith several times in the head.

So passionate.

Kaylor's wife told police that he said he "did what he had to do and to tell their kids he protected them."

It should go without saying that even if the worst claims about Smith are true, they don't come remotely near justifying this — not the murder of Smith, not the murder of the rest of his family, and not the murder of decency by the Tribune.

The Tribune's stories make half-hearted nods toward the idea that people shouldn't commit murder. But the full-hearted flow of its coverage would not leave you at all confused about where the Tribune truly lands.

The web site traffics in continual fear-mongering about a wicked world full of pedophiles lurking in the shadows to grab children. It's focus is largely on gay people, and its gay-bashing knows no limits. It sees "pedophiles" and "groomers" and "sodomites" and "perverts" under every rock and tree — everywhere except for the places where they really are, it seems.

It "exposes" local officials and public figures who are gay, or who support LGBTQ people. It recently published a story about a hailstorm in Boise suggesting that God was punishing the city for its progressive politics.

Last year, the site's hyperventilating invective against drag queens helped roll out the welcome mat for the Patriot Front to roll town in that U-Haul. Most of its articles are anonymously written, though some are attributed to a reporter who does not seem to actually exist.

There's reason to think that the site is affiliated with Dave Reilly, the brazen anti-Semite who moved to Idaho after promoting the infamous Unite the Right rally on his radio program and who has been warmly adopted by the Kootenai County GOP.

Brent Regan, who runs the local Republican mafia, publishes op-eds at the site, as does Dorothy Moon, who now leads the statewide GOP — reinforcing the reality that the fringe is now the mainstream in Idaho politics.

The Tribune painted the Kellogg massacre as the inevitable result of social conspiracies promoting evil gay people. But if you're looking to tease out a conspiratorial web from the Kellogg case, it's all right there on the surface of the Tribune's perverted "journalism."

When you fetishize guns everywhere for everyone, promote a 'roided-out version of masculinity, demonize government officials, wallow in angry bigotry, heroize vigilantism, tell lies and mock the truth, tar local gay people by name, and spy unpunished perverts everywhere you look — what do you expect to happen when a good man decides he just can't take it anymore?

We don't have to guess.