I laughed out loud when I learned that the man who sent poisoned letters to President Obama is a Democrat. And then I thought, “Well doesn’t that figure?”

The would-be assassin, whose fame I will not contribute to by writing his name, sent letters laced with ricin to Obama and to Republican Senator Roger Wicker. Inhaling the toxin is deadly, and all it takes to kill a human is an amount 1/288 the size of an aspirin.

A picture of the man, a white guy whom I will henceforth refer to as John, surfaced on the Internet (where pictures are wont to surface). It comes from his Facebook page and shows him kneeling down beside the back bumper of a car, which has a sticker on it that reads, “Christian and a Democrat.” John is giving the sticker a thumbs-up.

However, his Facebook page lists his political views as “Independent.” So the fact that he gave a pro-Democrat bumper sticker a thumbs-up and also tried killing a Democratic president likely means he is one of those people who feel that Obama is too moderate, that the Democratic Party is not suitably liberal, and therefore has registered as an Independent.

Even I initially thought that whoever did it was either a Republican or some backwoods, tinfoil-hat-wearing pseudo-Libertarian. Now that it’s come out he is a Democrat/Independent, it’s no surprise; virtually every assassin or would-be assassin of American presidents, both Republican and Democrat, have been leftists (to the extent that their political views are known).

Successful assassins (whose politics we know):

• John Wilkes Booth, a Democrat, shot and killed President Lincoln
• Charles Guiteau, a member of the communist Oneida Community, shot and killed President Garfield
• Leon Czolgosz, a leftist anarchist (similar to the useful idiots in the Occupy movement) shot and killed President McKinley
• Lee Harvey Oswald, a communist, shot and killed President Kennedy.

Failed assassins (whose politics we know):

• Severino Di Giovanni, a leftist anarchist, tried to bomb President-elect Hoover’s train
• Giuseppe Zangara, a professed anti-capitalist, tried shooting President-elect Franklin Roosevelt
• Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola, two Marxists, tried killing President Truman at the Blair House
• Samuel Byck, who tried joining the leftist Black Panther group, attempted to kill President Nixon
• Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, member of the Manson Family and also a hippie environmentalist, shot at President Ford
• Sara Jane Moore tried to kill President Ford as well because, as she said, “the government had declared war on the Left.”
• Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, a leftist connected to the Occupy movement, tried getting a one-in-a-billion shot at President Obama by firing a gun at the White House

The only individual whose political motivations can be deduced as coming from the right side of the political spectrum is Francisco Martin Duran, who claims he was “incited” by conservative talk-show host Chuck Baker, but also claimed that he was trying to save the world from an alien mist which was connected by an umbilical cord to another alien in the Colorado mountains. So there’s that.

All conservatives, let alone decent human beings, should be upset at any assassination attempt against any president, even Obama. Fortunately I haven’t seen any conservatives bummed out that John, with the ricin letters, failed to kill Obama. As awful—my word, just awful—a president as Obama is, and as evil as some of us, including I, think he is, he still has a wife and two children and they don’t deserve their husband and father, respectively, being taken away like that. Plus, though it’s an unfortunate fact, the fact is that Obama is the representative of America to the world. An attempt to kill him is symbolic of an attack on America.

So hopefully John with the ricin letters will be apprehended and receive capital punishment.