Dr. George Tiller was slain while serving as an usher during his church's Sunday services.

George Tiller, a Witchita doctor whose clinic provides abortions, was shot and killed in his own church this Sunday. Dr. Tiller’s clinic has been targeted by extremists before — in the 90s it was bombed, and in 1993 Dr. Tiller survived another shooting.

Police now have a suspect in custody. If Tiller was murdered for performing abortions at his clinic (this is almost certainly the motive), his would be the fourth such murder since 1993, when Dr. David Gunn was slayed by a gunman outside his clinic in Pensacola.

I predicted years ago that without a right-wing government to constantly placate them with red-meat rhetoric on abortion, immigration, gay marriage, etc. we would see a return to the kind of reactionary domestic terrorism that we saw in the 1990s — militia groups, attacks on abortion clinics, an uptick in hate crimes; incidents like Ruby Ridge, Waco, Oklahoma City — and with the current leadership in Washington, combined with a deep recession, we are seeing the beginnings of just that. Disaffected right-wing racist Christianists, the type of people who go to Teabagging rallies with signs that say “Obama’s Plan: WHITE SLAVERY*” are emerging as an American Taliban.

Orcinus has more. Much more. (Orcinus is an excellent source of coverage of right-wing extremism.)

My most heartfelt condolences go out to Dr. Tiller’s family and friends, and my harshest condemnation to anyone who hesitates for a moment in condemning this act of terrorism.

*For the record, Obama opposes white slavery.

UPDATE: Gabriel Winant at Salon has an excellent piece up chronicling Bill O’Reilly’s campaign against Tiller, shedding some light on the role right-wing pundits play in fanning the flames of eliminationist violence.