The coffin that was placed outside the private home of Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.) was a stunt organized by the St. Louis Tea Party Coalition and religious fanatic blogger Jim Hoft (“Gateway Pundit”), kicking his usual insanity up a notch into actual threatening behavior.

And he’s proud of it. Hoft sees absolutely nothing wrong with showing up outside the private home of an elected official carrying a coffin, in a week during which there have been numerous reports of threats and violent incidents. Nope. Hoft says the media and Russ Carnahan are “lying.”

What they’re lying about, he doesn’t say. He doesn’t deny any of the facts of the story. He did show up with the coffin at Carnahan’s home.

Hoft’s twisted rationale is that it’s a “lie” to see this kind of creepy behavior as a threat. He really believes he had a perfect right to stalk around outside Carnahan’s home with a coffin and terrorize Carnahan’s family — but even more than that, Hoft is angry with the media for not reporting that he was right to do it!

Here’s Hoft’s post at Father Richard John Neuhaus’s First Things website: Coward Russ Carnahan Pushes Bogus Tea Party Lie to Media– Claims Prayer Service With Coffin Was a Violent Threat.

We prayed for Russ Carnahan. We prayed that God would forgive him for taking away our freedom. We prayed for the babies who will never feel the warmth of the sun or a gentle spring rain. We prayed for the elderly who will die waiting for care because they couldn’t make it past the Obama death panels.

We prayed for Russ Carnahan.

So obviously it came as quite a shock tonight to see that the Carnahan people and the Democratic-media complex had twisted this innocent prayer vigil into some kind of threat against Russ Carnahan.