To some, suicide attack on IRS made pilot a hero

February 23, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

DALLAS (AP) — Flames were still shooting from the building when the suicide pilot who crashed his plane into the IRS office in Austin was being hailed in some corners as a hero who struck a courageous blow against the tyranny of the U.S. tax code.

Though most Americans surely see Joseph Stack as an angry, misguided man whose final act was repugnant, his suicide mission clearly has tapped a vein of rage among anti-tax, anti-government extremists.

The way they see it, “he did the ultimate flipping of the bird to the man,” said J.J. MacNab, a Maryland-based insurance analyst who is writing a book about tax protesters. “He stuck it to the man, and they love that.”

It is not surprising Stack would be portrayed as a hero on fringe Web sites such as stormfront.org, a forum for white supremacists. But admirers also are expressing their appreciation on mainstream sites such as Facebook, where a fan page supporting some of the things he said in his six-page manifesto had more than 2,000 members Monday.

Stack, 53, left behind a rambling, 3,000-word screed in which he ranted about his financial reverses, his difficulty finding work in Austin and his hatred of big business. Mostly, though, he focused on his clashes with the IRS.