The Ugly Europeans - Jean-Marie Le Pen, Jörg Haider, and other xenophobes. By Chris Suellentrop

Old story, but I bring it up to comment on some of the tears being shed for Pim Fortuyn, the Dutch right-winger who was assassinated today. Make no mistake: if Fortuyn wasn't a fascist, he was close enough to make no difference. This is a man whose entire platform was based on opposition to immigration, who said that the Netherlands was "full", that Islam was a "backward religion", and -- best of all -- that Muslims should be kept out of the Netherlands because they would endanger the Dutch reputation for tolerance. So he was gay; belonging to one minority doesn't excuse hating another. He was the Dutch Le Pen.

But the usually sensible-enough Protein Wisdom, for example, quotes another blogger who calls Fortuyn a "neo-conservative" and not "a buffoon like Le Pen". Great, so he was a smart racist demogogue. Andrew Ian Dodge blames the assassination on "the left", generally, and claims this shows that "the left" doesn't believe in democracy. Instapundit only uses the assassination as a launching pad for another anti-gun control rant.

Fortuyn should not have been assassinated. But he's no great loss.