Dumb and Scary

I read a rather unsettling article in the Times Argus today, about a man in Brattleboro:

A 32-year-old Guilford man has been arrested and accused of stalking and threatening to kill a family of Muslims that he believed were plotting a terrorist attack...Kyle A. Thurber was arrested Dec. 1 after waiting with a loaded rifle outside the workplace of two Muslim men, police said. Thurber, who has known the men for many years, told police they were terrorists planning to attack the United States.

That was the scary part. Now the dumb:

Thurber told police members of the family, who are Palestinian, were plotting to blow up the north end of Brattleboro and possibly the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon. He said he was suspicious because they frequently spoke Arabic to each other.

Now, if you read the article, it's quite obvious that the man has some serious mental problems. But I can't help but wonder how our nod-and-wink gov't sponsored xenophobia (with a healthy dose of help from the right-wing noise machine) has helped contribute to this in some way. No, I'm not proposing that the government is somehow responsible for the actions of some nut, but they're certainmy not helping that situation with their rhetoric, either. And then there is that new study out that showed a direct link between mental illness and support for President Bush...