First, a local United Mine Workers leader compared the Obama administration’s proposal to more closely scrutinize mountaintop removal permits as “state-sponsored terrorism.”

And now, Steve Walker of Walker Machinery says that a couple of young people who hung a banner on his building  remind him of  “suicide bombers.“

The peaceful protest took place at Walker’s facility up in Belle, as the seniors taking part in an anti-mountaintop removal march walked by on their 25-mile trek, which ended yesterday.

Walker’s comments came during a radio interview in which Chris Lawrence of MetroNews:

I equate these boys with the suicide bombers in the Middle East. People fill their heads with this dogma and they use them to do their dirty work, while people who are older and wiser perhaps sit back and watch them.

Interestingly, the “suicide bomber” sentence wasn’t include in the text-version of the story posted on the MetroNews Web site. But you can listen to the whole thing here.

Giving Walker the benefit of the doubt, he wasn’t actually comparing hanging a banner to strapping explosives to your body and walking into a nightclub or hotel. Perhaps he just meant to say he thinks all the young folks who have come to West Virginia to take part in peaceful civil disobedience protests have been brainwashed.

I know Steve is an avid Coal Tattoo reader, so I’ll invite him here to post a comment and clarify what he meant.