Charles Jaco has written opinion and commentary pieces for dozens of magazines and newspapers. Each week, read and comment on a fresh on-line version. The discussion page enables you to share your view points world wide. If you would like to make a comment go to the " Join the discussion" link below. If you would like to view past editorials visit the Editorial Archive. Editorial 01/19/01 note: for links to information resources on the new Bush era, go to NewsBoom THE REASON FOR TREASON The GOP's Wingnut Problem The first thing you notice about the Federal death chamber in Terre Haute, Indiana, is that there are decorative diamond-shaped tiles in the floor. Why? Who came up with the idea of putting a little Martha Stewart in the room where Tim McVeigh will rattle his last breath in mid-May? Maybe it's part of our collective human need for denial, an attempt to pretend that the twelve by twelve room and its' gurney with heavy leather foot and wrist straps is nothing more than a Marquis de Sade version of a doctor's examining room. But denial isn't limited to the Hoosier State. McVeigh is being executed for mass murder in Oklahoma City. But he's also guilty of treason. He took up arms--or more correctly, fertilizer and a Ryder truck--against the U.S. government. This is the same know-nothing, politically-correct, take-your-guns, radical-liberal, neo-Socialist, baby-killing, anti-free enterprise big-bad-bloated government that every conservative politico since 1960 has been running against. Talk to conservatives about McVeigh, and they'll condemn him as a madman who deserves to die. And in nine cases out of ten, they'll slip in the b word--but. As in "But I can understand his rage." Or "But he was angry over big government." Or "But he was frustrated." The GOP is living proof of the old Bedouin proverb about not letting the nose of a camel under your tent, because sooner or later his tail will follow. The Republicans find themselves uneasily in bed with an anti-government philosophy that inched its way into Jack Kemp's Big Tent. I'm old enough to remember the apologies from the Left over radical violence during the 1960's and '70's. You know, things like "It was wrong to bomb the ROTC building, but the bombers are frustrated over the war." Or "It's wrong for the Black Panthers to threaten cops, but you have to understand black rage." Or "It's wrong to burn the flag, but America has subjugated the people of Southeast Asia." The Democrats found themselves in bed with the hard Left, and most voters did just that. Left. Now the Republicans are bundled up with the hard Right, and voters are starting to take their business elsewhere. Which is why the GOP is so angry over Ted Kennedy's bug-eyed assault on John Ashcroft. Like Laurence Olivier's sadistic Nazi dentist in Marathon Man, Kennedy drilled toward a raw nerve without anesthetic. Kennedy ripped into Ashcroft's statements that Americans need guns in case they need "...to oppose a tyrannical government." To the point of hyperventilating, Kennedy thundered that Ashcroft and Arizona Senator Jon Kyl owed apologies to the American people for confusing the government set up by Madison and Jefferson with the redcoats of George III. Then it was Senator Joe Biden's turn, as the Delaware Democrat turned on Ashcroft for praising Confederate leaders to the editors of The Southern Partisan magazine. The publication is neo-Confederate, which is fine from a historic and cultural point of view. The problem is that the Partisan also supports the right of states to secede from the Union, rails against "Jews, eastern Europeans, Negroes, and others" who don't support its' agenda, and offered a nifty t-shirt for new subcribers, one with a picture of Abraham Lincoln and the motto "Sic Semper Tyrannis," which is what John Wilkes Booth yelled after putting a derringer slug into Lincoln's skull. This is sedition. This is borderline treason. This is xenophobic racism. This is the kind of publication that the hard Right has no problem with. And this is precisely the GOP's problem. The Republicans have welcomed the talk radio wingnuts with open arms. They say "but, but, but" enough to sound like an Evinrude outboard. But once you get past those politically-correct qualifiers, it's plain that many of them support the kind of drivel the Partisan publishes. They find McVeigh's anger understandable. They agree the government is the big boogey man and they need their guns. Like skaters skirting a hole in the ice, they come as close as they can to treason without falling in. The anti-government untra-Right is the biggest source of domestic terrorism right now. From bombs to bank robberies, they're following the trail blazed by the Weathermen and Black Panthers three decades ago. They fancy themselves a collection of Nathan Hales. They're really a motley assortment of Benedict Arnolds. They've swallowed the Republicans anti-government philosophy. The GOP had better hope they choke on it. Join the discussion

Visit the Editorial Archive.