Posting assignment #1 (due Sunday 1/23, 11:59 P.M.): Why did Loughner do it?

According to Ranke, you make history by going into the archives, finding sources ("memoirs, diaries, letters, reports from embassies, and original narratives of eyewitnesses"), and putting the facts together into a story that tells it "how it actually was" (wie es eigentlich gewesen).

According to Oswald (via Weidman), you make history by killing the president of the United States.

There are, of course, serious issues with both of these ways of making history.  Oswald literally killed someone.  (Byck too -- two people -- even without "succeeding".)  And Ranke, who only deals with people who "appeared in a pronouncedly active or leading role" in a given moment, ends up justifying these people's mass killing (of "infidels") as historically necessary.

With all that in mind:  in this post, you're going to make some history.  Specifically, you'll make some history about the case of Jared Lee Loughner, who tried to kill Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords about two weeks ago.  That part -- the what -- is not controversial; every source I've found pretty much agrees on what he did and where, when, and how he did it.  They disagree sharply, however, about why.

That's where you come in.

Here's what you need to do:

1)  Search the web for information -- primary sources (in this case, stuff written/made by Loughner himself) and secondary sources (news articles, analyses, etc.) -- on this why question.  Read, watch, and look at these sources.  Lots and lots of them.  The more, and the more varied, the better.  See my email for some places to start...but then go further!

2)  Read Milbank, and re-read Clarke, and take notes on how these texts might (or might not) help make sense of the Loughner situation, in light of all the other stuff you've read/watched/found about it.

3)  Write a post, at least 300 words long, in which you provide a (tentative) answer to the question:  why did Loughner do it?  (Or, put differently, what made him do it?)  As a good Rankean historian, you must ground all of your arguments in evidence from your sources.  In this case, I'm asking you to draw evidence from at least: 

• ONE PRIMARY SOURCE (something Loughner actually wrote or made), 
• TWO OTHER SOURCES (primary or secondary) you found, and
• EITHER CLARKE OR MILBANK (or both, if you'd like).

And just a reminder:  this is informal writing.  No need for an introduction or a conclusion or formal citations or inflated "academic" style.  Just show us what you found, and how those things led you to the argument that you're making.  Main directive:  don't bore your friends (or yourself).  The more fun you have writing it, the more fun we'll all have reading it!

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Finally, take some time on Monday (after you've posted on Sunday night) to read your colleagues' posts and write a thoughtful comment on at least one of them.  (All of this will, of course, set up our discussion of Milbank, Clarke, Beck, and Loughner on Tuesday.)