Butler buddy: You’re a real sweetheart

The desire for continued good health and peace of mind has moved me to rethink the whole Richard Butler thing.

Maybe the old tarantula who founded North Idaho’s racist Aryan Nations and got 86ed off the planet the other day wasn’t so bad after all.

I realize I’m flip-flopping worse than John Kerry on the Iraq war, but give me a break. How’d you like to get a Hallmark card from a neo-Nazi who’s serving 60 years in a federal lockup?

The baby-blue envelope was waiting in my mailbox when I waltzed into work on Thursday.

“Out of the Blue” stated the white letters on one side of the envelope.

Why, how nice, I thought. Somebody out there is thinking of me.

Then I turned the card over to see who it could be:

“Richard Kemp,

“09886-016 4B,

“Federal Correctional Institution,

“PO Box 5000,

“Sheridan, Ore., 97378-5000.”

I tore into the envelope.

Inside was a yellow card. It was adorned with a smiling sun, blue birds, pink butterflies and multicolored posies.

“Just a little card to brighten your day,” read the script.

I opened it up.

The note was handwritten. Blue ink.

“Hey Funny Guy,” it began, “I bet you think you’re pretty clever with your witty little column on Richard Butler.

“The same little things that make you laugh will make you cry.”

Wow. I think that’s what Tony Soprano told Big Pussy before he whacked him.

“After you and your bleeding heart liberal friends get done Californicating the last Bastion of White America,” the letter continued, “we’ll see if you still think what Butler preached was so funny.

“Air kisses, Richard Kemp.”

Air kisses from an Aryan?

This Kemp is KK-Kreepy!

At the risk of destroying Kemp’s image of me as a liberal bleeding heart, I say we crack down and stop giving convicts access to Hallmark cards. What kind of country club are they running down there in Sheridan?

What’s this dude going to send me next, for crying out loud, a Whitman’s Slammer Sampler?

Kemp apparently got his swastika out of joint at my eulogy to Butler, who went on to his dirt blanket earlier this month.

Sheesh. I don’t know what Kemp’s so peeved about.

I tried to give Butler credit for his many accomplishments such as: Lowering property values. Ruining tourism. Hug a Skinhead Week… .

Butler was a “fascist’s fascist,” I praised, a preacher who tirelessly “encouraged a small, but fiercely psychotic, band of worshippers to give their hearts to Jesus and commit major felonies.”

Oops.

Richard Kemp? The name sounded familiar but I couldn’t quite place it.

That is, until I looked under the “K” section in the index of the book, “The Silent Brotherhood – Inside America’s Racist Underground.”

Dude has about 30 page references.

The guy’s a racist rock star. He’s one of the thugs who ran with The Order, the Aryan terrorist group inspired by Butler’s hate-sopped white supremacist dog poo. The Order went on to hold up armored cars, bomb a synagogue, print counterfeit money and gun down a Jewish talk-radio host.

Arrested at a Montana poker game, Kemp was tried and convicted in Seattle in 1985. He was sentenced to 60 years for racketeering, conspiracy and armored car robbery.

Ohhh, that Richard Kemp.

Wouldn’t you think someone like this would be more image-conscious? Sending frilly Hallmark cards to wiseacre columnists could ruin a con’s reputation.

Don’t get me wrong, Richie. I appreciate the sentiment. Not to mention all the time it took to get the words spelled right.

I wouldn’t waste a dime returning the favor, but I did come up with some Hallmark-worthy sentiment that would make a swell jailhouse tattoo:

“Roses are red.

“Aryans are white.

“Butler’s dead.

“Get over it.”