MO Mayor: I 'Kind Of Agree' With Racist Shooter

How To End Your Political Career, 101: The Marionville, Missouri mayor who "kind of agreed" with anti-Semitic shooting suspect Frazier Glenn Miller resigned Monday, despite his vow last week that he wouldn't do so. Mayor Daniel Clevinger, 59, was facing impeachment proceedings following comments he made to television station KSPR, stating he shares some of the ideals of the accused killer, with whom he was once friends. This was followed by the revelation that Clevinger authored an anti-Semitic letter, to the editor of a newspaper in Aurora, Missouri a decade ago.

Clevinger was the subject of a tense hearing Monday night. Residents of Marionville descended on the hearing, condermning him for his racist views. One resident's statement, as reported by The Springfield News-Leader: "We must show our neighbors, state, our nation and a global community our true, kind, caring, loving and accepting community. We simply cannot tolerate a public official who makes anti-Semitic comments."

The former mayor's fate was likely all but sealed from the get-go by his fantastically tone-deaf remarks following Miller's arrest. But there was no turning back following the exposure of the overtly hateful comments he sent in to the Aurora Advertiser in October 2004 (which, it bears mentioning, the paper decided to print). He started by calling Miller "a friend," before launching into a conspiratorial diatribe:

The Jew-run medical industry has succeeded in destroying the United State's workforce. That is why our factories left. ... Made a few Jews rich by killin' us off. The Jew-run government backed banking industry turned the U.S into the world's largest debtor nation.

The city's aldermen voted 4-1 to begin the process of impeaching Clevinger, which finally chased him from his post.

Clevinger said that feeling hurt by people's impassioned condemnations of him as part of the reason he decided to quit. (Hurt feelings? Really?) Still, he wasn't without some supporters. The News-Leader also reported some troubling instances of anti-Jewish sympathizing mixed in with the denouncements.

Image: LeeAnn Adams/Flickr

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