Bill Ayers is just Timothy McVeigh with a pulse

Posted By Kathy Shaidle

On April 19, 2010

Fifteen years ago today, the morning of the Oklahoma City bombing, I was working at a typical Toronto office. Being a big media company, they had a large wall mounted tv that was always turned to CNN.
When I say “a typical Toronto office,” I mean that about an hour into news coverage of the attack, the young woman sitting next to me — a smart, attractive, funny blonde in the Reese Witherspoon mold — blurted sourly, without looking up from her paperwork: “Jezuz, you’d think a building had never blown up before…”
Which is why I do everything in my power to avoid having to work in a typical Toronto office, particularly after September 11. Not incidentally, my freelance work (such as the stuff I write here at NewsReal) conveniently prevents me from being hired to work in a typical Toronto office, ever again (or as long as Google exists). So, hey, it all works out! (PS: send money.)
Former President Bill Clinton has been talking a lot about the Oklahoma City bombing this week, mostly as an excuse to bash conservative talk radio, which he still blames (without any evidence) for inciting Timothy McVeigh to blow up the Murrah Building.
Rush Limbaugh was Clinton’s primary target back then. Last Friday, Rush responded to Clinton’s latest irresponsible statements tying together McVeigh, “right wing” militias, Tea Parties and talk radio hosts. When Rush flips the script, it leaves a mark. On the top of his website today, he’s placed a helpful “Rush Reminder”:

McVeigh was motivated and upset by the Waco invasion of the Branch Davidian compound. Attorney General Reno ordered tanks to be used against American citizens. McVeigh was not inspired by rhetoric. He was angered by action taken by the Clinton administration.

On Friday’s show, Rush told listeners:

So there you have it: Bill Clinton once again trying to rebirth his empty threat from 1995. He starts out tracing the plot that started in the eighties to “demonize government.” I have a question: (…) How come we’re supposed to draw (on the basis of no evidence), a connection between conservatism and terrorism, conservative ideology and terrorism? Where is that connection?
Yet we are told we must reject, despite tons of evidence, the connection between Islamist ideology and terrorism. So we can’t call Islamist fundamentalists “terrorists.” We can’t even use the word. But we can have ex-presidents and current presidents running around trying to associate conservatives with nonexistent terrorism at peaceful tea parties. Somebody needs to explain this to me.

In an uncharacteristically scathing post, the normally mild-mannered Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds weighed in:

A lot of people had forgotten… the shameful incompetence that led to the Waco massacre that — unlike the blamed Limbaugh, etc. — actually inspired Timothy McVeigh, but by bringing it up again Clinton is reminding people, and undermining the elder-statesman role he was trying to carve out. Bad move. Either he’s losing his touch, or they’re getting desperate. (…)
Lies and smears aimed at their fellow Americans, for short-term political gain. This is who they are, and this is what they do. It worked better, however, when there were fewer alternative channels of communication, and when their character was less well-known. (…)
When Clinton was yammering about the danger of domestic terrorists, Osama bin Laden was planning 9/11, and Clinton wasn’t doing much.

Indeed, I never quite understood the “logic” behind the raid on the Branch Dividians in Waco. The State had to destroy the children in order to save them? Isn’t that the kind of “state sponsored terrorism” lefty heroes like Ramsey Clark travel the nation’s college campuses to blather about?
Why do progressives wail about imaginary Israeli soldiers killing imaginary Muslim children in imaginary “incursions,” yet ignore an awfully similar sounding (and very real) incident that happened in their own country — except when they use it to blame all the wrong people for it?
Why did the scorpion sting the turtle?
“This is who they are, and this is what they do.”