
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, May 20, 1995                   TAG: 9505220010
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LEWIS R. SHECKLER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long

POISONOUS HATE SPEECH IS BEING SPEWED - FROM THE LEFT

TRYING to milk political gain from a horrible tragedy, President Clinton and his fellow liberals blame conservative speech for the Oklahoma City bombing. Conservative talk-show hosts are targeted especially by this liberal smear campaign, because talk radio isn't dominated by liberals.

The accusations are false. Those who bomb federal buildings because they believe the federal government is conspiring against them aren't conservatives but are anarchists. For example, citing his support of the North American Free Trade Agreement and his refusal to criticize the Trilateral Commission, these people believe Rush Limbaugh is assisting the government's alleged conspiracy.

Liberals don't let facts interfere with their smear campaign. Accusations in Hollins College Professor Peter Fosl's May 6 commentary ("Conservatives should own up to their share of the blame") are typical. Fosl pontificated: ``By helping to create and legitimize a climate of uncompromising anger, intolerance and zealotry, conservative political discourse was indeed a contributing cause to the death of more than 160 innocent people in Oklahoma City.'' He also claims ``the preponderance of hate speech today certainly emanates from the right.'' This is balderdash.

For many years, liberals have routinely pinned extremely negative labels on those disagreeing with them. Liberals have attempted to make ``radical right,'' ``far right,'' ``zealot,'' ``intolerant,'' ``bigot,'' ``homophobe,'' ``racist'' and ``sexist'' synonymous with ``conservative.`` Is this love speech?

Many times this year, liberal Democrats, including Clinton, labeled conservative Republicans ``mean-spirited,'' and accused conservative Republicans of ``taking food from the mouths of children.'' Clinton declared on Feb: 24: ``What they [conservative Republicans] want to do is make war on the kids of this country.'' Hillary Rodham Clinton weighed in: ``If the wrong side wins in this war on children, what will be lost is our notion of who we are as a people and what we stand for as a society.'' Are these happy, moderate, mainstream voices of tolerance and kindness?

On March 25, liberal Democratic Rep. John Lewis went to the House floor and attacked conservative Republicans, paraphrasing a famous pronouncement against the German Nazis' Holocaust. Lewis thundered: ``They're coming for our children, they're coming for the poor, they're coming for the sick, elderly, and the disabled.'' Liberal Democratic Rep. Major Owens said of conservative Republicans: ``These are the people who are practicing genocide with a smile; they're worse than Hitler.''

Attacking Henry Foster's conservative opponents, liberal Democratic Rep. Patricia Schroeder asserted on Feb. 11: ``We don't want to see that kind of [Nazi] goose-stepping over women's rights.'' On March 9, she snarled: ``Limbaugh's supporters are the ones who are goose-stepping.'' She assailed conservative Republicans on March 21: ``The first thing being thrown off the ship are women and children.''

USA Today columnist and Pacifica Radio talk-show host Julianne Malveaux said about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas: ``I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies early like many black men do, of heart disease ... He is an absolutely reprehensible person.'' And National Public Radio reporter Sunni Khalid said: ``When people told Father Aristide to sort of moderate his views, they were concerned about people being dragged through the streets, killed and necklaced. I don't think that is what Newt Gingrich has in mind. I think he's looking at a more scientific, a more civil way of lynching people.''

A recent Democratic fund-raising letter states conservative Republican Newt Gingrich is a terrorist and the most dangerous person in politics today. He has received death threats. Should we blame liberal hate speech?

Last year, Vice President Al Gore declared that supporters of Oliver North have an extra chromosome - implying they're mentally retarded by Down Syndrome.

Cal Thomas, a concerned conservative columnist, wrote: ``Pundits and politicians characterized those who worship an authority higher than the state as fundamentalist, snake-handling, Bible-thumping, know-nothing bigots, intent on taking over the country and ramming their biblical literalism down everyone's throats.'' He's right.

Your newspaper has printed political cartoons portraying evangelical Christians as rats, and Boy Scouts as religious extremists. You published a commentary that stated: ``The backwaters of Virginia are full of `born-again' fundamentalists, wild-eyed and slobbering for the punishment of the wicked.'' You also printed a letter to the editor attacking Jerry Falwell, which warned: ``I hear the echo of Hitler's storm troopers, marching to purge out all sinners and destroy dissenting opposition.'' And an attack on the Christian Broadcasting Network printed by your newspaper proclaimed: ``Fascism, wrapped in the veneer of quasi-Christianity, is attempting to run amok within our country and government.''

These examples are a very small part of the poison spewed by liberals. Note that the liberal, mainline media offer little or no criticism of any of it, but they castigate a relatively minor slip of the tongue by conservative Republican Rep. Dick Armey. Liberals should look into a mirror before they accuse other people of intolerance, bigotry, zealotry, extremism, anger and hate speech. Their accusations apply to themselves.

Lewis R. Sheckler, of Radford, is a retired Radford University professor.

by CNB