MEDIUM RARE

The best laid plans of mice and men don’t always pan out. Like assassination plots.  

CNN’s coverage of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump during a rally last weekend turned out to be a riveting live action show complete with an array of rifles, a huge crowd of innocent folks, and the US’ protective services on full display – FBI, Secret Service, Trump’s bodyguards. But was it a good plan for a 20-year-old high school graduate to conceive and carry out?

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing – news, entertainment, a documentary? Like a true movie fan, I was reminded of Clint Eastwood playing a close-in bodyguard of the US president in “In the Line of Fire,” but what was playing on the TV screen now on CNN was real, true-to-life, action more fascinating than fiction; it was happening in Pennsylvania, USA.

A 20-year-old loner – aren’t they all? – described as friendless, a regular victim of bullies – had shot Trump’s right ear with his rifle, from a roof 150 yards away, and Trump was bleeding. Getty Images showed an extreme closeup of the bullet flying in a straight line toward the right side of Trump’s head. In a matter of two minutes, said the on-air reporter, from the time the shooter’s first shot rang out to the time Trump was safely evacuated from the platform, the drama was over, after he asked twice for his shoes.

The shooter was killed by a sniper on the same roof where he had positioned himself. Trump’s head of security later told media, “The buck stops with me.”

Timothy Crooks, wearing glasses, slight of build and residing with his family in a pleasant neighborhood, used a rifle that a reporter said was the civilian equivalent of an M16. Before he carried out his plot, Crooks loaded his car with explosives. A search of his house yielded a cache of ammunition. What was his motive? What was he trying to say? Investigators were looking for clues in his cellphone messages.

My teacher used to say, “Silent waters run deep.” Depression is a sign of a troubled soul, and when a person is depressed, they don’t feel like talking or being with other people, they don’t feel like smiling and laughing is poison to them.