Steven Tyrone Johns.... RIP - Hero

Details will emerge in the next few hours and days, but by all accounts, Mr. Johns, the guard at the National Holocaust Museum, threw himself in the line of fire of the psychotic murderer whose intention it was to take as many bodies with him as possible.

It is no small coincidence, and irony, to me, that Johns is an African American, there to protect the Museum that, decorated with Eisenhower's statement of the danger of forgetting, commemorates the event that so many in his community, would claim never happened.

Mr. Johns life stands as a testament to that lie. And for that, as much as for his immediate heroism, we all owe him our eternal thanks.

He is, in fact, the latest victim of the Holocaust.

All thoughts and prayers go out to officer Johns, and his family. A truer hero there has not been.

To call him a great American would not be sufficient to ease the grief that his friends and family must be feeling tonight.

On a general note, I hate to say that I told you so, but as I have been discussing, the tenor of the country is so rabidly anti semitic now as to be truly frightening.

The story disappeared in hours, but it was only 10 days ago that a synagogue 10 miles from me was the subject of a conspiracy to kill Jews.

Fascism and hatred of the right is the same as of the left.

We all need to be vigilant.

One of the greatest concerns that I have is that the President's blame Israel policy will simply give a green light to this festering movement that I have seen all too up close and personally in this country.

I don't necessarily say that he is doing it with antisemitic motives (although I think it likely) but even just out of incredible ignorance.

As I pointed out in my post about his speech at Buchenwald, he failed to note the absolute desperation of the Germans to kill Jews, to the point of sacrificing the war itself to that end, as the days of the war came to an end.

This speaks to the level of hatred that continually festers, and that he has given a green light to.

As I have also written here many times, if you were to do an internet search on "Jew" or "Anti semitism" or any such term, what would come up are hundreds of thousands of web sites exactly like the one that this murderer posted. That in and of itself, speaks to the sheer volume of this hatred.

Be vigilant, America, be vigilant.