Forgetting Right-Wing Terrorism at the Atlanta Olympics
Conservatives may be having a blast now celebrating America's loss of the 2016 Olympics, but during the 1996 Atlanta games the explosion was literal. Right-wing terrorist Eric Rudolph detonated a bomb that killed one and injured over 100 people at the Atlanta Olympic Park. But while the Republican echo chamber never forgave Barack Obama for winning the presidency, Rudolph's extremist violence they seem only too eager to forget.
That selective amnesia was on full display during Fox News' bashing of Obama's hometown in the run-up to the selection in Copenhagen last week. While the network's Kimberly Guilfoyle decried Chicago's "lawlessness, violence on the street, [and] innocent bystanders being killed," Sean Hannity asked, "Is this a city where we want the Olympics taking place?" While Glenn Beck warned viewers that Chicago "led the nation in murders in 2008," S.E. Cupp lavished praise on Rio de Janeiro as "awesome" despite a murder rate double that of the Windy City.
But recent American experience hosting the Olympics suggests that terrorism - and not isolated acts of violence - represent the greatest threat to the safety and security of visiting tourists.
As Richard Clarke detailed to the 9/11 Commission, the Clinton administration worried about potential attacks by Muslim extremists on the '96 Atlanta games, including the use of hijacked aircraft. But it wasn't a nascent Al Qaeda that wrought havoc on the Olympics in Georgia, but a domestic anti-government and anti-abortion terrorist.
In May 2003, the FBI finally captured Eric Rudolph, the extremist fugitive behind the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Park bombing and a 1998 blast at a Birmingham family planning clinic that killed an off-duty policeman and seriously injured a nurse. Following Rudolph's apprehension, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft left no doubt that he considered Rudolph a terrorist:
"Today, Eric Robert Rudolph, the most notorious American fugitive on the FBI's 'Most Wanted' list has been captured and will face American justice. American law enforcement's unyielding efforts to capture Eric Robert Rudolph have been rewarded. Working with law enforcement nationwide, the FBI always gets their man. This sends a clear message that we will never cease in our efforts to hunt down all terrorists, foreign or domestic, and stop them from harming the innocent...
The American people, most importantly the victims of these terrorist attacks, can rest easier knowing that another alleged killer is no longer a threat."
As its coverage before and after the assassination of Dr. George Tiller (a man it deemed "the baby killer") suggests, Fox News doubtless would have refused to label clinic bomber Rudolph a terrorist. Neither, as it turns out, would Republican heartthrob Sarah Palin.
Palin's alarming position surfaced during her joint appearance with John McCain during a campaign '08 an interview with NBC's Brian Williams. Training her fire on Bill Ayers, Palin refused to similarly brand violent right-wing radicals as the terrorists:
WILLIAMS: Is an abortion clinic bomber a terrorist, under this definition, governor?
PALIN: (Sigh). There's no question that Bill Ayers via his own admittance was one who sought to destroy our U.S. Capitol and our Pentagon. That is a domestic terrorist. There's no question there. Now, others who would want to engage in harming innocent Americans or facilities that uh, it would be unacceptable. I don't know if you're going to use the word terrorist there.
And to be sure, the right-wing media machine in its seething hatred of Barack Obama wasn't going to use the word "terrorist" to describe the real security risk for the 2016 Olympics. Besides, as Ms. Guilfoyle assured us, "Everybody loves Rio."
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Why does Fox News hate America?
Posted by USA on October 6, 2009 9:12 PM