Ex-Bush Aide Fatally Shoots Son, Himself

WA PO ^ | Saturday, July 15, 2006 | Tom Jackman and Stephanie McCrummen

[GatorGirl]

The guy was a midlevel bureaucrat, hardly a "Bush Aide". I doubt the President ever met him.

The spin in this headline is beyond disgusting.

[beezdotcom]

Men eventually realize that there is no satisfactory exit strategy from a relationship involving children that goes bad.

Yeah, but they usually take a different route. Robert Blake comes to mind...

[don-o]

What a scumbag. Special place in hell for someone who would kill his own child.

Well, I hope I never hear such spew when you are street preaching.

The good news (gospel) is forgiveness, mercy, and all that.

What gospel DO you preach on the street?

[finnigan2]

"Special place in hell for someone who would kill his own child."

- The article seems to indicate that he was very close to his son. I take his actions to be one of a suicidal individual who kills his son - not out of hatred or revenge but because in his twisted thinking he couldn't bear to leave him behind.

[Yaelle]

This really has me crying. My oldest has autism.

It doesn't make sense. Unless maybe the wife had just told him she was leaving him and taking the boy. Maybe in a crime of passion he didn't want to "lose" his son?

[Iron Eagle]

Let's hope you are wrong -- he appointed him

[ShandaLear]

Is this some kind of mitigation for murder?

[Iron Eagle]

I knew Professor Lash. He was a black, conservative. He was smart, friendly, affable, and very popular. His credentials were beyond reproach. He was an accomplished writer, he made many appearances on FOXNews, and he ran in very big circles.

For those of us who knew him -- this tragedy is incomprehensible. If one were to craft a list of people who would never be involved in this type of tragedy -- his name would be on it.

It is a very sad event for his whole family -- and all of us who knew him. My understanding is, there was not a single sign of any problems with the family. Lash was fiercely devoted to his son, and spent more time with him than most of us get to do with out kids. I don't know that we will ever know what happened.

Obviously, he snapped. Once gone, he could not think rationally. I can only say this -- it is scary that this can happen to a man like Bill Lash.

May he and his son rest in peace. I have only sadness for his wife and the family.

As for the Post -- it is truly unseemly that they would link his death with his service. It is additionally not of the character of the site -- as I used to know it -- for people to assume he Lash was some unknown flunky. That is not the case. He was a star, and I am sure the President knew and had met him.

Obviously, he was not an inner circle advisor -- and his service there was honorable but not high profile. These deaths have no link to that service, and the Post's article shows the depth of its hatred for the Bush administration.

[woofie]

Thanks for your post.... all I can say is that some things in life are truly incomprehensible

[elkfersupper]

When this guy pulled the trigger, I'm sure he found himself in a worse predicament than having to pay child support.

I agree.

[elkfersupper]

This guy was a lunatic.

Agreed, but sometimes it is the system, not the situation, that pushes them over the edge.

[elkfersupper]

However, we must be running close to one/day in the news these days.

Every once in a while, someone just loses it with tragic results.

[tangodown]

I also knew him through my work. I agree with everything you've stated. He was very jovial, highly intelligent. It's inexplicable and deeply disturbing.

[Pikachu_Dad]

and why are they losing it?

[elkfersupper]

and why are they losing it?

A general feeling of helplessness aggravated by the tax codes, and increasing regulation of every aspect of day-to-day life.

[vintage]

What you wrote is absolutely ludicrous. How dare you accuse people you don't know of gaining happiness from such a tradgedy.

How disgusting. I know Sharon, and regardless of her political beliefs, she would not want people saying what you have said.

[skr]

How awful. Prayers for the widowed mother and their family and friends.

[WhiteGuy]

Assistant Commerce Secretary is a presidential aide?

I once read that any official that serves at the pleasure of the president is considered an "aide"

I'm not sure

[MattinNJ]

Well said.

[saradippity]

Thank you so much for that wonderful tribute. I went to some of the links posted earlier and found that he was a remarkably lucid and informed speaker as evidenced by a speech he gave in China to a group of students,I believe.

Another article spoke to an assignment he had to come to some understanding with drug companies in Israel re patents and generic drugs and standards. It demonstrated the confidence that we (US government) had in his ability to negotiate,clarify and deal with very complex issues. Whatever happened to cause him to kill himself and the child,it is just tragic and we should pray for them as well as his wife.

Although I hadn't even heard of him until this sad event,he is the fifth death this month that seems imponderable. The others were all deaths out of time,so to speak. A friend of mines brother's wife was killed in a jet ski accident,her young son ran into her on another ski and she was killed. Think of a young son killing the mother he loved.

A young mother of six or seven,who had written a beautiful book on the development of a baby from conception,through birth,to a couple of weeks out of the womb,ran over her four year old in the church parking lot,he died. Every parents nightmare becomes reality.

The chairman of group collecting petitions to place a "marriage between a male and female" on the ballot was killed in a one car accident the day before the group was to submit the petition to the state. The victory celebration for the intermediate goal accomplished was instead a time to mourn her death.

And finally,a relatively young president of a regional religious order died less than two months after being diagnosed with cancer. She had been young and vital. Another nun told me that one of the other "sisters" had said "I wonder if this is some kind of a message?" Looking at all of this is like a microcosm of the state of the world and I too wonder if we are getting some kind of a message from the One who loves us all and wishes we would choose Him?