— BBC News reports that the body of Pim Fortuyn will lie in state in the Rotterdam Cathedral the day before his funeral. Could it be that the assassination of Fortuyn will have the same impact on the Dutch that the John Kennedy assassination had on America? Everybody who was conscious at the time can tell you in vivid detail where they were and what they were doing when they heard about JFK, and his ascension into martyrdom cleansed him of all sin and made has agenda an article of faith for America for years to come. I don’t know that Fortuyn had this kind of standing in Holland, but his agenda will clearly outlive him.
The first signs of the martyr effect are already in, according to Adam Curry:
“25,000 expatriates who had already cast their votes and sent them to the Netherlands want to change their vote. Dutch government offices are being flooded by phone calls from Dutch people living elsewhere. This could be an exciting, surprising and mostly unpredictable election, for once.”
I’d like to think this is the beginning of the end of political correctness, in Holland at least, but we’re not quite there yet in the US.