One of the fascinations about watching politics in America is that just about every day you learn something new.



The most recent lesson is that if you're going to fly a plane into a building, it's better to be

named Joe than Mahmoud.



It seems to get you a more sympathetic response.



Last week, in Austin, Texas, Joe Stack, a software engineer with a grudge against how the tax system treated free-lance software engineers, flew his small plane into the building containing the local offices of the Internal Revenue Service. Besides himself, he also killed Vernon Hunter, an IRS worker and Vietnam veteran working in the building.



Generally speaking, Stack's effort seems to qualify as a suicide bombing, a form of expression that Americans generally discourage.



But somehow, Stack is widely treated as someone who certainly went too far, but was making an understandable point.



Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, explained to an interviewer at the Conservative Political Action Committee convention, "I think if we'd abolished the IRS back when I first advocated it, he wouldn't have a target for his airplane. ¤.¤.¤. It's sad the incident in Texas happened, but by the same token, it's an agency that is unnecessary and when the day comes when that is over and we abolish the IRS, it's going to be a happy day for America."



And when the day comes, presumably, we can name the empty building after Stack.



The new Republican senator from Massachusetts, Scott Brown, told a TV interviewer about Stack's crash, "I don't know if it's related, but I can just sense not only in my election, but since being here in Washington, people are frustrated. They want transparency, they want their elected officials to be accountable and open and talk about the things that are affecting their daily lives. So I'm not sure that there's a connection. I certainly hope not. But we need to do things better."



In Brown's defense, he's new to Washington and may not have figured out yet that it's not a great idea to wonder out loud if his election and a terrorist act were driven by the same kind of thinking.



Facebook was obliged to unfriend a Syracuse, N.Y., radio host, Jon Alvarez, who within six hours of the crash had set up a tribute page for Stack, telling The Post-Standard newspaper of Syracuse that Stack had made "a sacrifice to others who were having problems with the IRS."



This for someone who, before he got into his plane, demonstrated his clarity of thinking by burning down his house, the one where his wife and stepdaughter lived. His wife herself made the only plausible comment: ".¤.¤. words cannot adequately express my sorrow or the sympathy I feel for everyone affected by this unimaginable tragedy."



By contrast, Stack's grown daughter went on "Good Morning America" to call her father a hero and hope, "Maybe now people will listen." Offspring might reasonably be cut some slack — at least that's what people with offspring hope — and she later took back the "heroic" assessment. But if the daughter of someone named Omar had made that judgment, the ABC switchboard would have lit up in a demonstration of shock and awe.



The nuanced reaction to Stack wasn't limited to one side of the political spectrum, or to blood relatives. On the liberal Web site Salon, Andrew Leonard plowed through the 3,000-word manifesto Stack had left behind, and wrote a piece entitled, "Joe Stack wasn't wrong about the tax code."



And you know, when you think about it, the Unabomber made some really good points about modern technology.



Maybe this is all about a new world where nothing is out of bounds, or maybe it's because people can say (or do) anything involving the Internal Revenue Service and somebody — or lots of somebodies — will nod understandingly.



But it's also true that Stack actually killed more Americans — one — than the Christmas bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and people who frequently declare that they're on constant guard against terrorism might take more note of that.



It could actually help if people realized that being white, and blowing up something that many people don't admire, doesn't turn a suicide bomber into a regular Joe.



