No one could have predicted this idiot’s heart would one day blow out:
Michael L. Leisner, the man who became world famous for an anti-LGBT protest gone wrong, has died suddenly at the age of 65. According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the father of four abruptly passed away while sitting in his car, waiting for his two sons to finish their Saturday afternoon tennis practice.
A video of Leisner lighting a box of Honey-Nut Cheerios on fire, then losing control of the flames and hastily trying to stamp out the resulting blaze went viral online, making Leisner notorious, and opening him up to ridicule by comedians like Chelsea Handler of “Chelsea Lately” and Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show.”
I guess we can say he went out in a blaze of glory.
Too soon?
Comrade Jake
So wait… he was literally a flamer?
ShadeTail
He might have *wished* that he would go out in a blaze of glory. Just having a heart attack while waiting in the car is pretty anti-climactic.
Emma
Sorry. Everything I could think of was in terrible taste!
NotMax
Tsk-tsk.
Double r in Embarrassing.
/schoolmarm
kdaug
Not soon enough.
Predictable, though.
Most cardiologists agree that “shriveled, twisted, black with hate” is a poor prognosis.
NotMax
Also too, YouTube.
Old Dan and Little Ann
That’s a shame.
MikeJ
And he probably went out wishing he had been shot for holding hatred in such high esteem. Thank goodness he didn’t get that, nor did any of the bigots at the FRC.
Jay in Oregon
From the article:
Sorry, but no.
If you’re carrying on one-man anti-gay protests, you’re not a loving and caring person. Even if your anti-gay protests are laughably idiotic, the sentiment is the same as if you’re carrying around “GOD HATES FAGS” signs.
Although if God is going to be calling home his “loving and caring” followers, there’s a whole passel of them in Topeka, Kansas that he can start on. Might go a ways towards changing non-beleivers’ opinions on him…
Violet
Who’s doing the filming and giggling. Hilarious.
Frankensteinbeck
I do not cheer death. I’m happy to make fun of his failure in life!
Wrye
I feel badly for his kids. They probably don’t deserve any of this. On several levels.
dmsilev
@Emma:
So far, I’m not seeing any problem here.
jl
I think that video is enough, and anything else is piling on, and superfluous.
I think funniest GOP joke of the day is the coordinated GOP campaign to express ‘very sincere concern’ that Biden is hurting the Democratic ticket, and HRC would be better.
Once the GOP tactical directive of the day gets texted and faxed out, these goons get going on their orders, don’t they?
I think either HRC or JB would be excellent veep nom and office holder.
My guess is that GOP tacticians are at loss for bigot wedgies with the white man Biden. Probably salivating over all the sexist garbage they could throw against the wall if HRC were the veep nominee.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Shades of Andrew Brenbart; stupid irrational rage and paranoia right before the fatal heart attack.
hoppipolla
Cole, as a heart attack survivor, i must tell you…yeah, fine, not too soon at all. and may i add it would be irresponsible not to speculate about brother Leisner’s Chik-fil-A intake in the days leading up to his life-defining act and predictable demise.
jl
@Frankensteinbeck: I’ve also wondered how that video got made, and how it got released. Was there a second unsympathetic group recording it?
jheartney
I don’t know how old the sons were, but if they were at tennis practice, they may well have been teens or pre-teens. Losing their father, even if he was a wingnut, has got to be a real blow to kids that age. There may well be a lot of pain in that family at the moment, and it’s not the sort of thing I find funny.
Savaging the guy for his hamfisted and bigoted “protest” is all fine and dandy, but he’s not the one who’s around anymore.
Felinious Wench
My God is an awesome God.
jl
@jheartney: I agree.
Scott S.
ZOMG, OBAMA DID IT.
dead existentialist
Don’t think he can out run the flames where he’s at tonight.
Trentrunner
Good lord, what a bunch of pearl-clutching fainting babies. I hope flamer’s teenage tennis-playing sons learn a valuable lesson from this: You do a shameful, assholish thing, and that’s what you’re remembered for. And if you do a stupid, assholish thing, you get made fun of, even when you die. Especially when you die. Your father was a bigot and an asshole. Do better.
cathyx
Wow, what are the odds?
The video looks like it was made by onlookers. He had an audience when he did this and at the end it looks like the video recorders were chased away.
Citizen_X
Hell, I saw that video and thought that that guy was parallel-universe John Cole.
Trentrunner
Oh, and thanks for reminding me that Breitbart is dead, and how he died. The world is a much, much better place now that he’s wormfood. Irony!
Villago Delenda Est
This guy’s heart would have been perfect for Dick Cheney.
Linda Featheringill
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: #14
If I interpreted the notation on YouTube correctly, the video was posted on 08/09/2012. So it wasn’t long before the heart attack.
ShadeTail
@jheartney:
Celebrating death is ghoulish.
Making fun of someone posthumously is entirely fair game, including making fun of how they died if applicable. I’m not going to fault his family for mourning him, but the man was a fucking shithead.
My only regret is that his manner of death doesn’t qualify him for the Darwin Awards. Considering that he was an extremist Christian, that dubious honor would have been a double-whammy.
gelfling545
To whatever gods there be: Grant that I may so live my life that my actions will never be a source of amusement to the blogosphere on my passing.
smike
Too bad he wasted what little time he had left involved in a hate crime (it was both hateful and criminal).
Trentrunner
@gelfling545: Let me help you with that:
1. Don’t be an bigoted asshole.
2. Don’t be an idiot.
3. If you can’t avoid 1 or 2, don’t VIDEO YOURSELF DOING THEM.
Frankensteinbeck
@jl:
My limited understanding is that he posted it on YouTube. Himself. Willingly. And was then arrested.
Mark B.
I don’t want bigots like this to die, I want them to get better. I know, it’s extremely rare that they do, but sometimes it happens.
Hilarious video, I’m hoping the reaction to it helped him to see how silly his beliefs were, but probably not.
jl
@Frankensteinbeck: That is just too weird, if true.
Brian R.
I still can’t believe that guy was straight.
MikeBoyScout
This needs to go VIRAL
Yes, Mr. Ryan, I’m from Iowa
The Republican V.P. rudely dismissed me when I asked him whether he planned to cut Medicare
By Cherie Mortice
Via by Inameli over at the GOS
srv
Let’s hope this goes viral.
Going to be a lot rage deaths in November.
Moeiz
Should have ate more cheerios – they’re Heart Healthy!
MikeBoyScout
I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumours
But I think that God’s got a sick sense of humor
And when I die I expect to find Her laughing
idiots!
jl
@MikeBoyScout:
I see that TPM says the the Ryan gambit in the Ryan/Romney ticket is not firing on all cylinders yet. Turns out that if you add one disingenuous con artist with a vague plan that makes no sense and numbers that don’t add up with another disingenuous con artist with a vague plan that makes no sense and numbers that don’t add up, you get two disingenuous con artists with two vague and more confused plans that makes no sense and numbers that don’t add up.
Which the purportedly brilliant budget wonk Ryan cannot explain.
Who would thunk?
Romney + Ryan = More Budget Math Confusion Than Ever
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/romneys-budget-math-become-even-more-confusing-after-ryan-pick.php
And as I was typing this, new story appeared that says Ryan ended up slamming his own plan in stump speech.
Too much flim flam con bamboozlement and confusion to keep up with.
pseudonymous in nc
Let him rest in peace, and let’s concentrate on making sure that if there’s one thing the world remembers us by, it’s not discovering the flammability of breakfast cereal.
D0n Camillo
@gelfling545: I like what I saw on George Takei’s Facebook page: “Live your life so that the Westboro Baptist Church will want to picket your funeral.”
trollhattan
Hopefully there’ll be a video tribute and moment of remembrance at the RNC convention.
Teddy's Person
@Violet: My guess is his kids. You can hear him say “let’s get out of here guys” (while there are still some flames in the grass) and you see a flash of a teenage boy getting in a car.
The Other Chuck
I guess we can say he went out in a blaze of glory hole.
FTFY.
Applejinx
Ask yourself: what would Michelle Malkin do?
Yeah, pretty much this.
Someone not living to see the error of his ways is not grounds for a party. Only consolation is that, as with Breitbart- being that messed up is literally toxic. So don’t be that way! Take it as a lesson and move the fuck on!
I have this casual friend. Hard working lady, with a kid, Cuban ancestry, probably Romney voter, Randite streak- but also, one of the most civilized people I know, capable of being very decent to me since I don’t get in her face over stuff. Well meaning.
We had a bit of a verbal scuffle- resolved in oh so civilized a way, without any ground given but with peace all the same. I thought about one day telling her of things to look at if she wanted to see my side- Naomi Klein’s ‘Shock Doctrine’, that e-book The Authoritarians, stuff like that. I also thought of Balloon Juice.
Thank goodness I didn’t tell her to look at this site only to hit THIS. Wow.
Schlemizel
@jl: It was recorded by his son – no idea how it got posted unless the kid did want to humiliate the pompous ass – hhhhhhmmmmmmm
Also too: too bad there wasn’t some grain that is known to reduce heart clogging sludge and that this grain could be baked into, oh I don’t know, lets say breakfast cereal. Because if there was such a thing maybe this bigot could have eaten that avoided the heart attack & vexed decent people for another generation.
Comrade Jake
And yet, alas, the wingers have made even more embarrassing videos of themselves.
Breezeblock
Cereal Killer?
danah gaz (fka gaz)
I expected that Caz or mechwarrior online would chime in to say something extraordinarily stupid by now.
gelfling545
@Trentrunner: Words to live by.
Hal
If you can’t say anything nice…If you can’t say anything nice…If you can’t say anything nice…ouch ouch cramping, cramping.
PS, so much for that heart healthy cheerios.
Just Some Fuckhead
I bet it was a cereal killer that got him.
Chris
@Mark B.:
Charles Johnson of LGF gives hope. He used to be the worst of the worst, and look at him now.
Chris
@Mark B.:
Charles Johnson of LGF gives hope. He used to be the worst of the worst, and look at him now.
Schlemizel
@Trentrunner: THANK YOU! I for one am sick to death of having to treat these inflamed assholes as if they were decent human being who would afford us the same. Well, fuck em all. This may have been a minor hemorrhoid on the body politic but he and the really large ones, like Dimbart did not earn the right in life to be treated as decent people because they were not decent people.
That they had families only makes them less decent – they could not imagine one of their own on the receiving end of the filth they spewed? Or, gee he bought me a beer once and talked like a normal guy he was not foaming loonie. Well to that I’ll quote the inimitable Joker:
“Yes, it true what they say about Boss Grissom, he was a murderer and a fiend, but he has a lovely singing voice.”
the Conster
Since Obama, I’ve come to look at middle aged white men like that poor dumbfuck dead Larry in the video as a human subspecies on the edge of extinction. Adaptation, bitches! Leisner may not have believed in evolution, but evolution believes in Leisner.
quannlace
The video doesn’t load for me. What’s the point of his protest. Does General Mills not discriminate against gays?
eugene
Well…bye.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReYfu5E-hOE
Applejinx
@Schlemizel: I’m not saying I wouldn’t gun the guy down if we were in a battle and it had really come to that. I have plenty of friends and family at stake here (in all the various conserva-lunacies), and I understand we may end up at war with these maniacs and vice versa. I have no ground to give to them, I have no concessions to make for them. That’s kind of where my fight with my probably-conservative friend stemmed from.
Here’s the deal:
We choose not to be Malkins and Brietbarts pointing and laughing at the untimely real-world death of someone on the other side, not in hopes of leading them by example to be less corrupt and horrible, but to NOT BE FUCKING HORRIBLE OURSELVES.
I gain NOTHING from laughing at this dude’s fate. In fact I’d rather he lived to dial it down a notch- or if I want to feel vindictive, I’d rather he lived to see Obama re-elected in a massive landslide.
Just because people are horrible monsters doesn’t mean you have to fight them like a fellow monster. Guy’s dead and never saw reason. That’s sad and that’s shameful and it’s too late to change it. I’m concerned for those who can still be reached. It won’t be through appeasing them and being gentle with their feelings about their insane beliefs- but it sure won’t be like THIS either.
Some of you guys have looked into the abyss TOO damn long.
Joel
@Violet: That would be the kids. I feel bad for them, because they clearly deserved better.
jimmiraybob
Jeez wiz on a cracker. Forget bullets and guns, I’m stocking up on honey-nut cheerios to defend the castle in the upcoming revolution the teabaggers are always on about.
BD of MN
@quannlace: General Mills issued a press release disagreeing with the upcoming MN same sex marriage ballot initiative…
kuvasz
God punished him for showing so much hate to his fellow humans. It happens.
Beauzeaux
@Trentrunner:
+10000
I didn’t like the asshole when he was alive. Why would I suddenly be all mooshy when he dies.
Too soon? Not a fucking minute too soon.
Felinious Wench
@Applejinx:
Some of us are just Irish.
David
Gives me some faith that there is a god.
Mr Stagger Lee
To quote Malcom X
Shana
@Comrade Jake: Holy crap that was awful, and just as childish as I always assumed she would be.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
I’m with you, Mike B. & Chris. I can’t bring myself to be snarky or do a jig because a foolish man died. I’m not going to chastize those who find dark humor in the event or who want to call attention to the man’s vile perspective, but, for what it’s worth — nothin’ — I would have preferred he lived a longer life and found enlightenment.
Ruckus
@jl:
That’s what happens when you lie all the time. Sooner or later you get caught because you can’t remember which lie you told to whom. IOW you end up stepping on your genitals a lot. R/R are so lacking in lying skills that they seem to be doing the stepping wearing golf shoes.
Ruckus
@Trentrunner:
Well stated.
Why do we have to stop laughing at the haters just because they became prematurely terminal? They didn’t deserve our respect in life, how do they deserve it in death? A life of hate and stupidity is just that and it requires mocking. We all die, we are all just worm food afterwards. It’s what you do here and now that is important.
chuck butcher
What you get to leave behind is what you’ve done with your life. The afterlife and all that is meaningless to the world you lived in – what you did counts. There are things in my life that I’m not proud of, I deal with that – but there are a hell of a lot of things that rebalance the equation I built as a practicing addict/alcoholic that make me proud I wouldn’t have to die with a lot of regrets.
Too bad this kind of shit is what this guy leaves behind.
Felinious Wench
@Ruckus:
“It may be your most important role in life is to serve as a warning to others.”
Ruckus
@Felinious Wench:
I hope you aren’t talking specifically about me! Although this very thought has crossed my mind.
So do you think people will see the point is to not to set breakfast cereal on fire or to not be a flaming bigot?
Patricia Kayden
Bah bye, Leisner. We hardly knew thee.
All that anti-gay bigotry must have weighed him down.
Yutsano
I prefer to forget him. That is the true definitiom of hell.
Bnut
He reminds me of this guy.
Bnut
He reminds me of this guy.
Bnut
He reminds me of this guy.
TS
I could almost believe in a god after this – but will just accept that rabid hatred of anything is not good for one’s health.
Ash Can
Yeah, I think so. The guy had family and friends; not a good time for them.
russell
what the fuck is the connection between cheerios and being gay?
i feel like i went to sleep, and when i woke up, everybody had gone stark raving mad.
ShadeTail
@Applejinx:
I read this, and all I can see is a load of self-righteous braying. The fact is, there is a huge difference between taking joy in someone’s death and simply not letting his death erase what an amazing piece of shit he was. The vast majority of folks here are doing the second, and yet you accuse us of doing the first.
And really, now that he’s dead, the example he set is suddenly null and void? That’s basically what you’re saying, when you declare that you’re only concerned with the ones who are still alive. Except that’s nonsense. The dead can still serve as inspirations in one way or another, either for good or for bad. On the one hand, you have folks like Stalin or Pol Pot. On the other, you have folks like Martin Luther King or Gandhi. Are we not allowed to opine on their lives and examples just because they aren’t with us anymore?
Of course, Michael Leisner was neither Stalin nor Gandhi, he was just some private free-time bigot. But we can still find a message in his life, regardless of his death. Unless, of course, hand-wringing concern trolls like you manage to muzzle us.
russell
except it happened EVERY FREAKING DAY.
The Fat Kate Middleton
@MikeBoyScout: That letter was superb. Makes me proud to be an Iowan (“Iowa Strong”) AND a retired Iowa teacher.
Soonergrunt
If only there were some kind of food he could have eaten that would have reduced his cholesterol intake. Some whole grain cereal perhaps, that he could’ve consumed in the morning with skim milk, maybe.
Shame, that.
I’m sure this guy had people who loved him who now miss him. I feel sympathy for them in that respect. But the world is down one closet-case/bigot, and that can’t be a bad thing.
After all, Breitbart had kids and he’s still dead.
liberal
@ShadeTail:
Really well put.
Applejinx
Well, suit yourselves. I’m just saying, I was JUST TALKING to somebody who might be reachable and this shit ain’t helping. I never got called a concern troll before, so that’s broadened my experience! :D
So you’re saying WHAT the wingnuts do is good, it’s just for the wrong team? That’s an interesting way to operate a society.
Nemesis
I blame Obama.
iLarynx
It’s a fairly recent disease afflicting right-wingers: Breitbart Syndrome. This occurs when the collision of their massive stupidity with reality results in hyper-cognitive-dissonance so great that it causes the victim’s life functions to just give the fuck up. Kind of the opposite of Monty Python’s “Funniest Joke In The World.” More like Benson in “Think Positive” from The Regular Show. (I think Benson looks a bit like Breitbart. Give Benson a pot-belly and some stubble and they could be twins).
Cermet
As an extreme thug hater, I draw the line here – this man has an absolute right to protest a corporate policy and we should support that; further, his death is not funny or any less tragic because he was against gay equal rights (what happen to “I may not agree with what you say but I’ll fight for your right to say it”? We are getting small when we mock the death of a fellow citizen who is using his rights in a proper manner. Also, corporations never do anything unless they feel it makes them money and I don’t trust them to do the right thing unless we have the power to protest their actions.
Northern Observer
I think there is a larger metaphor here about the price of rage, how it kills the individual but it also kills the movements and the institutions that embrace it, like the Republican party and movement conservatism. This is the price of evil, it consumes you as you harness it for your own ends.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
Call me a concern-troll if you will, but if you’re talking about how great it was that this guy died, that he deserved a relatively early death because of the way he thought — and because of his ludicrous attempt to illustrate his views with the cereal-murder — then you can’t cry foul when the next Ted Kennedy dies and people on the right start hooting and doing terrorist fist-bumps.
I’m not saying we throw down a useful weapon in the heated war of words — go ahead and mention the guy was a bigoted fool — but be careful about looking like one of them on the far right. Can’t we be better than that?
If “being better” means losing, then, of course, we “concern trolls” would have to re-think things. But I don’t think we’ll lose the hearts and minds of Americans if we try to control our mockery a little bit.
The Lodger
@Ruckus: We laugh at the haters because That’s What Works.