JUST GOT THIS FROM A PAL: http://www.freekentucky.com/stryarch01/discomfort.htm McVeigh & Vidal discomfit the newswhores Carl F. Worden June 11, 2001 Timothy McVeigh was put to death this morning. He was pronounced deadat 8:14 am(et) in the federal death house at Terre Haute, Indiana. Only 232 of a possible 1100 plus relatives of his Oklahoma Citybombing victims bothered to view the execution via direct link toOklahoma City. Among those who were invited by McVeigh to witness his execution in person was noted author Gore Vidal. If my instincts serve me as they usually do, Vidal will be writing his own book about Timothy McVeigh that will prove to be most unsettling to the government that just killed him. A few weeks ago I caught the end of a CNN interview between Mr. Vidal and CNN correspondent Catherine Crier. You could see Crier's skin crawling when Vidal correctly pointed out that the victims of Oklahoma City would all be alive today if the government hadn't protected the federal agents who gassed and barbecued an entire church congregation in Waco, Texas in 1993. Crier blurted something about it never being appropriate to take matters into one's own hands, and that we are not to settle such matters violently in this "democracy" of ours. Vidal went even further in observing that when a government has gone so far out of control that it begins murdering its own citizens and then covering it up, the citizens have no other option than armed resistance. Visibly shaken and caught completely off guard, Crier shot back something about "That's not done in a democracy" again, and abruptly terminated the interview as politely and expeditiously as her wits would allow. I was amused, to say the least, and I won't count on seeing Gore Vidal being interviewed on CNN again anytime soon -- if ever. But I am definitely looking forward to reading Mr. Vidal's book, which, if his interview with Catherine Crier is any indication, should be a real barn burner. Governments have always labeled terrorists as cowards, but any thinking person knows that is just not true. Those two men who stood and saluted each other as their C4-packed rubber boat exploded and nearly sank the USS Cole in the harbor at Yemen looked certain death right in the eye and didn't blink. So did Timothy McVeigh this morning, and so have all those suicide bombers harrassing the government of Israel. While we might rightly condemn an act of terror so mindless and cruel as that of McVeigh's, and grudgingly admire a successful attack on a major warship, as that in Yemen, the one thing we can all agree upon is that your average terrorist is anything but a coward. John F. Kennedy correctly warned that taking all the peaceful, legal and non-violent means to secure justice away from the people would guarantee violent resistance, and he was right: Waco, and the resultant bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City is a perfect case study. All that was needed to complete that recipe for death and destruction was a corrupt Clinton Administration and a gutless, weak and compromised Congress. The government had done a great many terrible and unjust things to individuals in the past, and the occasional bombing of an IRS office here and there was a measure of that, but no one, except our worst citizens, were prepared to emotionally absorb, accept and forgive an FBI sniper who could coolly and cruelly shoot a young mother in the face who was armed with nothing more than her ten-month-old suckling daughter. When the government protected the monsters responsible for that outrage at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and then followed up by protecting the feds responsible for gassing and immolating 19 little innocent children in that church at Waco, I knew there would be a response. There had to be a response: You can't televise that kind of government mischief to 280 million Americans, follow it up by protecting the guilty, and not expect at least one of them to do something harsh. If he was going to put his life on the line for something, I only wish McVeigh would have had the decency to target the truly guilty. --
