June 20, 1997: Times Columnist Rails against ‘Traitor Movement’ of ‘Gangs of Armed Racists’ that Spawned McVeigh

A.M. Rosenthal. [Source: Schema Root (.org)]New York Times executive editor and columnist A.M. Rosenthal writes an excoriating op-ed column about the “traitor movement” that he says impelled Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997) to carry out the bombing of a federal building and kill 168 people (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). Neither Congress, state governments, law enforcement agencies, nor American political parties have “done their duty,” he writes, in protecting the citizenry from what he calls “the gangs of armed racists who conceived and organized the crusade that inspired” McVeigh. “Since that day,” Rosenthal writes, “nothing has been done that diminishes the vivid likelihood that these gangs will carry out or inspire other bombings in other cities. They call themselves militia and patriots. But they are exactly what a prosecutor said about Timothy McVeigh—traitors. They talk and think like sick paranoids, which they are. But they know what they are doing. They are trying to inject civil servants with terror, prevent state governments from functioning, and eat away at American confidence in the ability of government to protect the citizenry and itself.” The “patriot movement” continues to, among other things, buy and distribute explosives for more bombings, cheat on their taxes, and commit an array of crimes, from money laundering to robbery to violent attacks on law enforcement officials and even murder. Most state law enforcement agencies are “paralyzed” by inaction, Rosenthal writes, with many state attorneys general refusing to enforce state legislation against militia and paramilitary “gangs.” Gun-rights advocates argue against any laws against gun distribution or ownership, Rosenthal writes, and as a result the most violent and deranged racists and anti-government activists have no problem assembling their own arsenals. In many instances, he writes, local militia organizations outgun the local and even state police. President Clinton spoke out against militias in the days after the Oklahoma City bombing, but, Rosenthal writes, he was drowned out by “politicians, lobbyists, and journalists who wanted him defeated in 1996 [calling him] a vote-hunting manipulator.… Since then there has been not much leadership from the president against armed racism and rebellion, no plan of action.” It is up to the press, he writes, to “report the importance” of the government’s failure to take action against the militia, and the public to “raise a gigantic fuss about the country’s collective refusal to do anything but shake its head and wipe its eye.” [New York Times, 6/20/1997]