I think I have found the most persistent lie recent of the left. No, not that people want liberalism. They now admit they don't, at least implicitly, in their name change to "progressive". Nor is it the lie that they only want to "fix" the free market. They often slip up and confess to wanting far more than that. Not even the supposed 46 million uninsured, as that number has changed several times, shrinking or growing to fit every need. No, the most persistent lie on the left, at least in the past decade or so, is that the right embrace Timothy McVeigh.

Normally this would just be a laughable aberration on the part of the left, confusing the rhetoric of the Clintons (recall the "vast right wing conspiracy"?) with the true reaction of those on the right. But, in the wake of Fort Hood it is now being brought out to prevent any investigation into the motives of the shooter, just as, in the wake of 9/11 it was revived to white wash the role of Islam in the attack in New York and Washington.

For those who don't recall, when the Oklahoma City bombing took place the right was as shocked and disturbed as anyone else. Both before the actor was known, and after, those on the right roundly denounced the bombers, even when the nominally anti-government message of the bomber was known. The right did not rally to McVeigh's defense, did not take up his cause, they rightly called him a deluded individual who committed an unthinkable act. (If you want proof, look at the fringe right wing conspiracy theorists, they actually postulated ties to Saddam Hussein. If even the fringe rejected him, you can be certain the mainstream was not fond of the man.) The only people saying the right agreed with McVeigh were the Clintons, who, looking to win some PR points on the back of a tragedy, blamed Rush Limbaugh and a "vast right wing conspiracy" for inspiring the bombings.

The left never quite got over the Vast Conspiracy, but they were quiet for a time. When the public proved unwilling to blame Rush Limbaugh for Oklahoma City, the issue was quietly dropped. If McVeigh came up, the left would nod and agree among themselves that the right wing was to blame, but they didn't say it too loudly, or with much conviction. McVeigh had flopped as a political pawn, so they let the whole thing drop.

Until 9/11. After the initial confusion wore off, and the left remembered to blame America for its own misfortune, McVeigh proved the perfect tool to white wash any Islamic involvement. At the time, with Islamic terrorists having killed 3000 people, America in general was coming to realize they had paid too little attention to Islamic terrorism. It had been the major form of terrorism throughout the 80's, but in the 90's we had allowed Clinton to convince us it was a "police matter", and, despite continuing Islamic terror, we largely ignored it, refused to connect the Cole, Mogadishu, the first WTC attack, and other events. But after 9/11 Americans began to question if maybe Islam wasn't worth a bit more attention.

This was not a good thing for the left. Not only did it implicitly blame Clinton for our woes, but the efforts to bring attention to Islam's role went against the multicultural, nonjudgmental doctrine the left pushed. And so we heard over and over that the second biggest terrorist act in US history was committed by "a white Christian". To farther muddy the waters, especially when fighting efforts at reasonable profiling, they elevated any incident at any abortion clinic into a "terrorist" incident, as well as inflating the significance of the Olympic bombing. Had you listened to the left in early 2002, you might have been justified in thinking there were weekly bombing by enraged Christian activists.

Of course, this missed the point. Even if there were a pattern of Christian, anti-abortion terrorism, that did not eliminate the pattern of Islamic terrorism. Identifying a second pattern does not eliminate the first. It was more like the deceptive strategy of a defense attorney, showing that something similar was done by someone else to raise reasonable doubt. But, unfortunately for the left, the Islamic terrorists were not cooperating. They had happily claimed credit for all their misdeeds, so there was no hope of playing down their involvement. And America did not buy into the theory that the right wing was driving Christians to violent terrorism to the same degree Islamic militancy was inspiring terrorist acts.

But hope springs eternal, and it seems Timothy McVeigh is in making a return appearance. This time to try to prevent the right from raising questions about the Fort Hood shooter. The line this time is that McVeigh was inspired by and embraced by the right, so if the right tries to tie Hasan to Islam, they have to admit that somehow McVeigh ties back to them. It is tortured logic, to say the least. First, because the right did not embrace McVeigh. Second, and more importantly, because McVeigh was hardly inspired by traditional right wing beliefs. So it makes no sense to compare questioning Islam's role in Fort Hood to questioning conservatism's role in Oklahoma City.

But no doubt that will not prevent the left from trotting out McVeigh again and again, just as they do with every abortion clinic bomber.He is just too useful, giving them a white, Christian "terrorist" example to offset the many cases of Islamic terrorism. S expect to encounter this example every time Islamic terrorism arises, at least until some other deranged white man commits a terrorist act they can tie to conservatives of Christianity in some tenuous way.

POSTSCRIPT

I need to add two points to this post.

First, I am not saying there was any formal terrorist involvement in the Fort Hood attack. I believe it likely that his Islamic beliefs provided a convenient excuse to fuel his paranoid beliefs. But I also know am I am not fully informed on this topic. It is possible he was acting out of belief rather than madness. There have been some suggestions of ties to radical Islam. So it is possible that he really did act out of conviction. Or, also possible, radical Moslems may have noted his instability and fed his discontent in hopes of inspiring such an act. But I do not know, and I just can't say right now.

Second, another equally bizarre claim by the left is that "moderate Moslems" have denounced this attack. Now, I know there are moderate Moslems in the US, as I have worked with many. And as individuals they are as shocked by violence in the name of Islam as anyone. However, we also have the problem that many mosques in the US (outside of those involved with the Nation of Islam, which has its own issues), have been funded by Saudi Arabia, and so have a strongly Wahabbi, fundamentalist trend. So, while every mainstream Christian church loudly denounces violence committed in the name of Christianity, the religious leaders of American Islam are largely (though not completely) silent. And so, despite the claims on the left, the impression given is that mainstream Islam does not oppose such acts, whatever the feelings of most Moslems.

POSTSCRIPT II

My four year old son just informed me "You never write 'The End' at the end of your stories." So, for his sake:

The End