How Clinton exploited Oklahoma City (Murrah Bombing) for political gain

Tomorrow, 19 April, marks the 15th Anniversary of the Murrah Bombing. We were living outside San Antonio at the time and remember seeing video of the trucks pulling up to the San Antonio Federal Building loaded explosives into trucks to take to Kelly AFB from the Federal Building where they had been stored in case of an attack. After the first night we never heard that mentioned again.

One thing that has always stood out is at the Bombing Memorial Museum there is a huge mural of the Memorial Service following the Federal Murrah Building Bombing which was attended by the Clintons and other dignitaries. It jumps out at you that everyone around the Clintons is devastated but Bill and Hillary look like the cats that swallowed the canary. Whoever took the photograph managed to get them in an unscripted moment.

Never say a word about the mural to visitors we are taking through from out of town, yet it never fails when they looked at the picture to make a comment about the Clintons and the looks on their faces and how they don't look sad but look proud of themselves. You hear that comment from people we didn't know who were also visiting. We haven't been to the Museum for several years so not sure if that mural is still there but next time I have some time in Oklahoma City, I will go check and if it is removed, ask why.

One of the rumors floating around was that there were no federal law enforcement killed but a former agent for Bush 41 was killed in the bombing as you look at the cube of his personal effects that they chose to display.

There was so much more to the Murrah Bombing then simply two white guys one from a Michigan militia who made contact with an OK militia group that was never investigated and no reason given why. Always suspected it was because the Clintons didn't want the facts to come out.

From the motel owner that tried to tell the FBI that Atta and Moussaowi stayed at his motel along with Nichols and McVeigh at the same time to the 3rd person who was with McVeigh who they put out a description and a BOLO but then it disappeared off the radar like a lot of things. Seeing the facts there was a meeting at the WH a short time after the bombing on how Clinton could use the Bombing should make one think long and hard about the facts and how little we really know about the bombing beyond McVeigh and Nichols. How many of the facts were covered up and never investigated as it fit the Clintons to have it domestic terrorists not foreign terrorists like Al Quaeda.

We believe we paid for the cover-up dearly on September 11th, 2001, when the Al Quaeda terrorists struck the World Trade Centers, Pentagon, and a plane over the skies of Pennsylvania. How many ties went back to the Murrah Bombing. Not sure we will ever know. The 9/11 Commission hearings were a bad joke.

After seeing the Department of Homeland Security in action not sure it was a good idea. At least with agencies under different leadership, they might spot something another agency doesn't. This way they all report to the same person. The problem was the agencies were not talking to each other due to the Clinton's Jamie Gorelick Wall that separated Intelligence from Law Enforcement. We wish we could say the 9/11 Commission looked into the wall completely but pretty hard when Gorelick was a member of the Commission.

What is being hidden from the public about the Murrah Bombing and 9/11 to this day. Jayna Davis who has been outspoken with facts about what happened is ostracized by the Feds and people in power but why? Why won't the people in power listen to Davis? Her book, "The Third Terrorist -- The Middle East Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing" should be mandatory reading.

We know we do not have the full details from the Murrah Bombing or 9/11, but then Oklahomans were supposed to swallow it was a "lone suicide bomber" who tried to blow up OU Memorial Stadium and blew himself up. Having been at that game, I didn't swallow it then and haven't changed my mind today. When you make numerous trips to the Norman Bomb Disposal area with ingredients from his apartment he shared with a Pakistani because one load could blow up at least a city block, something is wrong. Then when you blow up the chemicals, it rattles my windows 5 miles away, the story the Feds pushed holds no water.

All these incidents including the Christmas Day Bomber point to cover-ups, but WHY is still the question. Will we ever know? Some day someone will probably give us the truth but we are not holding our breath. No one has even answered the question as to why the Murrah Building was taken down so rapidly before investigators had a chance to really look at what might have happened. A website mentioned re bars looked strange and within a week they were all cut off.

The fact that Clinton used this tragedy for his own gain should make anyone think twice when he speaks out that he is still that Clinton who would rather spin then tell the truth. What he did for his own political gain should have been the reason he was impeached and removed from office.

When you look at this picture of the fence that people from around the world left items for the 168 people who lose their lives that day, you wonder how the Clintons can continue on like they are on top of the world. If anyone should be asking 'when did they know it?,' it should be the people who lost loved ones and friends almost 15 years ago on a day that will live forever in the memories of Americans.

How Clinton exploited Oklahoma City for political gain
By: Byron York Chief Political CorrespondentApril 18, 2010

With the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing Monday, former President Bill Clinton is playing a starring role in the liberal effort to draw what the New York Times calls "parallels between the antigovernment tone that preceded that devastating attack and the political tumult of today." The short version of the narrative is: Today's Tea Partiers are tomorrow's right-wing bombers.

On Friday, Clinton spoke at a symposium on the bombing organized by the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, founded and run by John Podesta, the former Clinton White House chief of staff who also directed the Obama transition. The theme of Clinton's remarks was that movements like the Tea Party, characterized by extreme right-wing rhetoric, could lead to political violence. In the last few days, news accounts in the Times ("Recalling '95 Bombing, Clinton Sees Parallels"), Newsweek ("Hate: Antigovernment extremists are on the rise -- and on the march"), and ABC News ("Watch your words") drove home Clinton's point. "This is a legitimate thing to do," the former president said, "drawing parallels to the time running up to Oklahoma City and a lot of the political discord that exists in our country today."

What Clinton and his supporters do not talk about is the way in which Clinton, aided by pollster/adviser Dick Morris, exploited the bombing to make a political comeback from what was the lowest point in Clinton's presidency to that time. (The Lewinsky scandal was still three years in the future.) In the days after Oklahoma City, Clinton and Morris devised a plan to use the bombing to discredit and outmaneuver the new Republican majority in Congress.

Clinton was in deep political trouble in April 1995. Six months earlier, voters had resoundingly rejected Democrats in the 1994 mid-term elections, giving the GOP control of both House and Senate. Polls showed the public viewed Clinton as weak, incompetent and ineffective. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his GOP forces seized the initiative on virtually every significant issue, while Clinton appeared to be politically dead. The worst moment may have come on April 18, the day before the bombing, when Clinton plaintively told reporters, "The president is still relevant here."

And then came the explosion at the Murrah Federal Building. In addition to seeing a criminal act and human loss, Clinton and Morris saw opportunity. If the White House could tie Gingrich, congressional Republicans and conservative voices like Rush Limbaugh to the attack, then Clinton might gain the edge in the fight against the GOP.

Morris began polling about Oklahoma City almost immediately after the bombing. On April 23, four days after the attack, Clinton appeared to point the finger straight at his political opponents during a speech in Minneapolis. "We hear so many loud and angry voices in America today whose sole goal seems to be to try to keep some people as paranoid as possible and the rest of us all torn up and upset with each other," he said. "They spread hate. They leave the impression that, by their very words, that violence is acceptable."

At a White House meeting four days later, on April 27, Morris presented Clinton with a comeback strategy based on his polling. Morris prepared an extensive agenda for the session, a copy of which he would include in the paperback version of his 1999 memoir, Behind the Oval Office. This is how the April 27 agenda began:

AFTERMATH OF OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING

A. Temporary gain: boost in ratings -- here today, gone tomorrow
B. More permanent gain: Improvements in character/personality attributes -- remedies weakness, incompetence, ineffectiveness found in recent poll
C. Permanent possible gain: sets up Extremist Issue vs. Republicans

Later, under the heading "How to use extremism as issue against Republicans," Morris told Clinton that "direct accusations" of extremism wouldn't work because the Republicans were not, in fact, extremists. Rather, Morris recommended what he called the "ricochet theory." Clinton would "stimulate national concern over extremism and terror," and then, "when issue is at top of national agenda, suspicion naturally gravitates to Republicans." As that happened, Morris recommended, Clinton would use his executive authority to impose "intrusive" measures against so-called extremist groups. Clinton would explain that such intrusive measures were necessary to prevent future violence, knowing that his actions would, Morris wrote, "provoke outrage by extremist groups who will write their local Republican congressmen." Then, if members of Congress complained, that would "link right-wing of the party to extremist groups." The net effect, Morris concluded, would be "self-inflicted linkage between [GOP] and extremists."

Excerpt: Read more at the Washington Examiner