15 years later, the lessons still resonate: But McVeigh should not have been executed

15 years later, the lessons still resonate: But McVeigh should not have been executed: ""

Stanley Crouch

Last week was the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, and a close examination of it is very important in this time of paranoid fantasies. That is what Rachel Maddow did with a documentary called "The McVeigh Tapes."

Maddow is a person from whom strong, detailed reporting is expected, even though it sometimes falls into the tiger pit where Jon Stewart, Bill Maher and other supposed progressives unintentionally prove that they are just angry frat boys branding the air with four-letter words.

But when barely veiled threats against the life of the President are made by people at right-wing rallies, the hysteria rattles Maddow and she responds with the best she's got - a fine mind, great empathy and the inability to silently swallow willful distortions perpetually passed off as political discourse.

Maddow trusts the facts. McVeigh had left more than 40 hours of interviews taped on Death Row, from which he took a solo flight that was cheered by the many who hated him. At the conclusion, when the wounded and still grieving citizens have their say, we are so humbled by their humanity that their agony and their insight becomes collective, hopefully.