What does Clinton have in mind? - Pres. Clinton's attack on conservative radio broadcasts - Column

National Review, May 29, 1995 by William F. Buckley, Jr.

Inasmuch as we are all talking about words and their meaning, what exactly did President Clinton say in Minneapolis? He said that the nation's airwaves are too often used "to keep some people as paranoid as possible and the rest of us all torn up and upset with each other. [Such people] spread hate, they leave the impression that, by their very words, that violence is acceptable. . . . It is time we all stood up and spoke against that kind of reckless speech and behavior."

He meant Rush Limbaugh, no?

But . . . he didn't use the name Rush Limbaugh, White House aides were quick to point out.

Well then, who did he have in mind?

Unless the person doing all those awful things on the air waves is a pretty big fixture on the national scene, surely the President of the United States would not bother to single him out for national attention? If it was somebody who got on the air from Tuscaloosa one night to empty his bile, that wouldn't qualify as the object of the President's attention. Right?

The Media Research Center in Washington, thinking to call the President's bluff, offered one hundred thousand dollars to anyone who could cite a broadcaster as engaged in the activity Mr. Clinton was condemning. There are (so far) no takers. The best those commentators could do who appeared on the MacNeil - Lehrer program was to quote an imprudent remark by Gordon Liddy, but what he said -- that if any official came to his house to requisition his pistol, he'd better shoot straight -- was more rodomontade than a call to arms or hatred. What a few weekend soldiers in Michigan said was that if tyranny ever came to America, that would be a call to arms. That is of course correct. Be prepared, as the Boy Scouts are taught. In Switzerland every household has a rifle and ammunition, never mind that it's been 150 years since they were needed except for target practice.

No, Mr. Clinton was talking about palpabilities. And everybody knows that the primary target of Mr. Clinton was Rush Limbaugh, the hate spreader. Herewith a personal confession: I do believe that Limbaugh induces hatred: if I were a liberal, I would hate him.

But hatred of that order is of course a part of the democratic experience, and Mr. Clinton of course knows this. He is the proud member of a party whose highly acclaimed leaders during this century have done their best, which has been very good, to "spread hate." Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whatever else his contributions, certainly did his best to cultivate class antagonisms. The lesson was not lost on his successor. On October 25, 1948, in Chicago, running for re-election, President Truman explained to the people what he worried about.

We had only recently won a world war, granted, and all the soldiers were now out of the army and home. But maybe we were too complacent. Certainly President Truman thought so. "Other people," he said then, "have also loved freedom but lost their liberty with tragic suddenness. It happened in Italy 25 years ago. It happened in Germany 15 years ago. It happened in Czechoslovakia just a few months ago. And it could happen here." Oh? It is hard to remember when last Rush Limbaugh warned that fascism might suddenly happen here.

The President's tactics are pretty clear. He put his big, embraceable arms around Oklahoma City and, simultaneously, gun control and the crazies in Michigan -- and Rush Limbaugh. Students of forensic language will want to concentrate on what is going on and classify it with care. Here are two definitions taken from the dictionary:

"1. The practice of publicizing accusations of . . . subversion with insufficient regard to evidence.

"2. The use of unfair . . . accusatory methods in order to suppress opposition."

That is how the American Heritage Dictionary defines "McCarthyism." To be sure, as Mr. Truman taught us, we have to guard against losing our freedom suddenly. After all, it happened to Italy 72 years ago, happened to Germany 62 years ago, happened to Czechoslovakia 47 years and a few months ago.