THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, May 15, 1995 TAG: 9505120008
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 40 lines
I have grown increasingly incensed at this ridiculous argument that the rhetoric of the very people who trounced the liberals last November is, in some bizarre way, responsible for the terrible tragedy which occurred in Oklahoma City.
After reading staff writer Alex Marshall's ``Right-wing catalysts'' (Commentary, May 7), my anger reached new heights. The subtitle of his article read, ``Pundits such as Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich have stirred anti-government talk that contributed to the Oklahoma City bombing.''
This contention is completely devoid of any historical or social analysis. Was Abraham Lincoln's rhetoric responsible for John Brown seizing the U.S. arsenal at Harper's Ferry? Were Bill Clinton's rhetoric and demonstrations responsible for the Weathermen, Black Panthers, Symbionese Liberation Army or others who, in the name of peace, attacked government ROTC, draft-registration and recruiting buildings?
That argument is ludicrous.
This latest cowardly attack had no serious support of any respectable group, whereas John Brown, the Ku Klux Klan of the 1860s, the anarchists and labor unions at the turn of the century, the socialists in the 1910s and 1920s and the Weathermen/Black Panther types of the 1960s all had open support from many intellectual and business elitist circles.
Can the liberal politicians and press ever get it through their heads that the resounding defeat which they suffered last November was a rejection of an insensitive, distant and smothering federal bureaucracy and not a conspiracy by those they hold in contempt?
JIM FAUST
Virginia Beach, May 9, 1995 by CNB