The Jigsaw Puzzle of Jared Loughner

A team of reporters at the NYTimes dug up exhaustive background material on Jared Lee Loughner and published the long result this a.m.

He began to come unhinged around four years ago, about the time he dropped out of high school, and he cobbled together scraps of strong opinion that he picked up from currents and eddies in the swirl of national conversation, melding them with his own theories and strange beliefs. Some of it seemed all too similar to what others had been saying who never picked up a gun and killed people:

...He became intrigued by antigovernment conspiracy theories, including that the Sept. 11 attacks were perpetrated by the government and that the country’s central banking system was enslaving its citizens. His anger would well up at the sight of President George W. Bush, or in discussing what he considered to be the nefarious designs of government....

“He was all about less government and less America ... He thought it was full of conspiracies and that the government censored the Internet and banned certain books from being read by us.” ...

It was not just his appearance — the pale shaved head and eyebrows — that unnerved [employees at a local branch bank]. It was also the aggressive, often sexist things that he said, including asserting that women should not be allowed to hold positions of power or authority....

Not exactly the apolitical madman that some want to make him, and far, far from the "liberal of the liberals" of Congresswoman Foxx's rhetoric, and bent imagination.