The left rushes to play the bombing blame game

Among the more unseemly traits of the leftist is his unseemly exploitation of tragedy for political gain. The dust had hardly settled in Oklahoma City before the left started using the bombing to promote their political agenda.

On CNN's "Crossfire," just two days after the bombing, Bob Beckel cited it as justification for stricter gun control. The next day, a civil rights activist pointed to the bombing to buttress her argument for abrogating free trade agreements. But the lowest ill-use of the tragedy was Bill Clinton's when he tried to use the bombing to intimidate his talk radio critics and silence those who dissent from his vision of an all-inclusive and all-intrusive government. He implied that such talk has instilled in people the notion that the government is their enemy and that they would never have arrived at that conclusion on their own.

Really? Do Kamiah residents who are abruptly kicked off their land by the federal government, which then compounds the affront by demanding trespass penalties, need Ken Hamblin to finger their enemy?

When a farmer in Bakersfield, Calif., has his livelihood destroyed because he is suspected of having inadvertently driven over an endangered species of rat need Rush Limbaugh to incite his anger? (Note: A year later, the government still had not established that the rat was a member of an endangered species.)

On Ruby Ridge, Idaho, a young boy and a mother cradling a baby in her arms were killed by federal agents executing orders the Justice Department itself described as "illegal" and "unconstitutional." Then, the man who gave those orders was not prosecuted, but promoted. Is it conceivable that some might take offense without G. Gordon Liddy's encouragement?

Talk radio does not create enemies of the government. At most, it comforts the victims of government excesses with the knowledge that their experiences are not unique and that they are not so alone. Notably, nobody criticized the Civil Rights establishment after Colin Ferguson's murderous rampage on a Long Island subway, even though he was reciting its clichs as he was being hauled away.

If there is a medium that unambiguously encourages hatred of the government, it's the big screen movie produced by Hollywood. Clinton didn't complain about movies. But then, the Hollywood left just bulged his campaign coffers with a $50,000-per-couple fund-raiser. Nor did he criticize Gangsta-rap for its advocacy of cop-killing.

Might that be because the biggest distributor of that genre is Time-Warner, a huge Democratic Party donor and primary underwriter of the 1992 Democratic National Convention?

Anger at the government is not the creation of talk radio. Rather, talk radio has tapped a resentment of an arrogant and unrestrained exercise of government power. As the most passionate and visible advocate of ever bigger government, Bill Clinton has attracted the scorn of all those who advocate a much smaller role for the central authority.

Clinton has since claimed that what he really wanted was just a more civil debate. That would be more believable if Mr. Clinton would first clean up his own house. Several times, on the House floor, Democrats have compared the "Contract with America" to Nazism. Republican welfare and school lunch reform proposals have been likened to Hitler's extermination of the Jews. In early 1993, former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell threatened race riots if Republicans did not end their filibuster of Clinton's "economic stimulus package." Clinton's interior secretary, Bruce Babbitt, referring to private property defenders said, "We must recognize our enemies and drive them into oblivion." Clinton, his wife, Al Gore, and several Democratic congressional leaders have characterized Republicans as "right-wing extremists," the same term now being attached to the beasts who just blew up innocent women and children.

In "The Agenda," author Bob Woodward described the Clinton strategy of creating enemies, then promising to get even with them on behalf of ordinary Americans. Remember "the richest 1 percent of Americans," or greedy "pharmaceutical firms," or heartless "insurance companies" whom the Clintons vilified and upon whom they promised vengeance These days, the Clintons labor to make the case that Republicans intend to starve children for the purpose of "giving tax breaks to the very wealthiest Americas." It's unlikely that any president in American history has pursued so divisive a political strategy or has attacked his opponents with more extravagant and inflammatory accusations.

The hyperbolic and accusatory rhetorical instruments that Clinton employs have provoked reaction in kind. Those who sow the wind should expect to reap the whirlwind.