Will Synagogue Bombing Plotters Become Poster Boys for Universal Healthcare?

May 25th, 2009 9:17 PM

An interesting twist in last week's arrest of four Muslim men charged with plotting to bomb New York synagogues was reported Monday: the younger brother of one had a deadly liver disease that Medicaid wouldn't cover.

Makes you wonder if this revelation will be used by media to advance President Obama's universal healthcare plans.

Consider the following opening paragraphs of a New York Daily News article published Monday entitled "Terror Plotter David Williams Did it For Me, says Sick Brother Lord McWilliams":

"My insurance wasn't good enough," said Lord McWilliams, 20, who has a deadly liver disease.

His brother, David Williams, wanted money "to speed up the process," McWilliams said. "Medicaid only goes so far."

He dismissed as "crazy" federal accusations that Williams was a Jew-hater who wanted to wage jihad.

McWilliams said the FBI informant who lured his brother and three other hapless petty criminals into a plot to blow up synagogues and shoot down a plane promised enough money to take care of his transplant.

"[My brother] told me, 'Don't worry, when you go to the doctor, tell them you got money,'" McWilliams said.

McWilliams, who has already had his spleen removed, said his brother told him he would have $20,000 for the operation.

Tugs at the heartstrings, doesn't it?

Making matters worse, there is some question as to what role the FBI informant involved actually played in this case. As WCBSTV.com reported Monday:  

Williams' mother says her son didn't have the cash for the dummy bombs the feds say he bought.

She says Williams was driven by money, and that he never talked about wanting to commit jihad or a holy war against Jews.

"He said, 'I met a real Muslim brother who's going to help me with Lord," Elizabeth McWilliams says.

The girlfriend of terror suspect James Cromitie tells the same story.

Kathleen Baynes says that not only did the informant give Cromitie tons of literature – including an Osama Bin Laden book and prayer rugs – but he also paid their rent and got them cell phones.

She even saved the informant's phone number on her phone.

"He was stalking them, he basically pimped them," Baynes says. 

The Associated Press logged a similar report Sunday:

According to informant Shahed Hussain, who also helped the FBI in 2004 by posing as an arms dealer, he met the men arrested last week at a local mosque. [...]

Hussain drove the men to scout targets and supplied them with weapons and explosive devices that, unbeknownst to the accused, were fake.

"Where he goes conspiracies blossom," said attorney Terence L. Kindlon, who represents one of two men sentenced to 15 years in prison based on Hussain's help in a 2004 case involving money laundering charges for a fictitious terror plot.

Put it all together, and this could easily be framed by universal healthcare loving media members as a poor ex-convict with a deathly ill brother possessing no health insurance becoming a domestic terrorist in order to get the money for a medical procedure the family can't afford.

You can even see the headline: "Universal Healthcare Needed to Prevent Rise in Domestic Terrorism."

Or am I just being too darned cynical for my own good?