A VIEW FROM HERE
by deb weiss

Some Kind of Heroes: Mumia, Soliah, Et Al
September 2, 1999


The furor continues over Bill Clinton's sly clemency offer to those 16 jailed members of the FALN -- the Puerto Rican radicals whose decade-long string of terror-bombings left six dead and dozens injured, some for life.

Critics -- noting the vehement opposition of prosecutors, law enforcement organizations, and even some in Mr. Clinton's own Justice Department -- suspect it's just a political ploy, designed to boost almost-candidate Hillary Clinton's standing among New York's Puerto Rican voters.

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The left is all for it, naturally. While some activists express an almost theatrical outrage at the single limp and lonely string the president attached to the deal (a polite request that the terrorists promise nicely to 'renounce' violence), in fact, they're pleased as punch.

Some Democrats are breaking ranks, however. Among them is Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the senior Senator from New York and last of the old-style liberals, who, earlier this week, bluntly stated his opposition to clemency. (By contrast, New York's unctuous junior Senator, Chuck Schumer, is hedging his bets until he can figure out which way the wind is blowing.)

Clintonite spin-artists have entered the fray, looking worn and haggard these days, poor dears, after six long years of it. Still, they pump away valiantly, with the grim tenacity of riders in an eight-day bicycle race

Why, this isn't political at all! they proclaim, wide-eyed and disingenuous.

This deal has the backing of Cardinal O'Connor himself (so does the ban on partial birth abortion, but let that pass). This represents the will of 75,000 petitioners from around the world.

Those jailed FALN 'activists' were victims of judicial overkill. Anyhow, if the president's motives were so 'political,' he'd have done this 14 days before the election, wouldn't he? -- not 14 months.

Perfect rubbish, I hardly need add. Of course his motives are political.

But they involve more than simple electoral politics. This clemency business reflects the kulturkampf politics of the American left, for whom the FALN is merely the latest charm on the bracelet.

Among the others: Philadelphia cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. In 1982, the former Black Panther fatally shot a young cop named Daniel Faulkner (an act he tacitly admitted in a recent radio interview, after years of highly-politicized denials).

No matter. Weirdly certain that Mumia's the real victim here, his defenders hail him as 'the voice of the voiceless,' spewing out vicious polemics against those who brought him to justice -- cops, prosecutors, judges, the governor of Pennsylvania: even Maureen Faulkner, widow of the murdered officer.

Mumia enjoys the unwavering support of the usual dreary roster -- Ed Asner, Leonard Weinglass, Angela Davis, Ramsey Clark, Daniel Berrigan, the ACLU. Appallingly, the celebrated writer Alice Walker says of Mumia that "he shows us our best self." (For those who haven't had enough, Mumia Awareness Week takes place later this month: September 19-25. Hold those dates.)

Equally passionate are the fans of former Symbionese Liberation Army radical Kathleen Ann Soliah.

Soliah and her then-boyfriend, James Kilgore, joined the SLA after its leaders (including the ex-con race hustler Donald "Cinque" DeFreeze) were killed in a May, 1974 shoot-out with Los Angeles police.

With fellow-radicals William and Emily Harris, Soliah and Kilgore plotted a retaliatory campaign of terror. When the authorities closed in, however, Soliah vanished, successfully evading justice for 23 years, until her arrest this spring.

Once underground, the resourceful Soliah did splendidly for herself, marrying a doctor, morphing gracefully into 'Sara Ann Olson,' and enjoying all the comforts of capitalism.

Following her arrest, she was tenderly described by a local reporter as "an actress, gourmet cook, community activist, and Highland Park mother of three." The Los Angeles Times ran Soliah features under such glowing headlines as "Charity and Acting Filled the Life of Ex-SLA Soldier." Indignant editorialists chided the FBI for wasting its resources to harry this accomplished wife and mother.

Charges against Soliah included conspiracy to commit murder and possession of explosives. She'd planted pipe-bombs beneath LAPD patrol cars, in hopes of killing cops. That none were killed was a measure of her ineptitude, not her intentions.

Which brings us full-circle to the FALN terrorists. Like Mumia and Soliah, they've become a 'cause' amongst the kind of people who never can altogether distinguish cause from effect.

By pandering to these fashionable terrorists, the Clintons are actually making a play for the plush, progressive editorialists -- the people who write the first draft of history.

They're who this is really all about, of course: not a pack of scruffy voters who'll surely (or so the Clintonian calculation goes) vote for Hillary in any case, no matter who draws the get-out-of-jail-free card.

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A VIEW FROM HERE archive

Being Janet Reno -- August 30, 1999

The Ghost At Our Banquet -- August 26, 1999

Solving Maleness -- August 23, 1999

The Media: A Nose Like a Vacuum Cleaner -- August 19, 1999

A Voter's Guide To The 21st Century -- August 16, 1999

A Good Town -- August 12, 1999

Singing The Praises Of Government News -- August 9, 1999

The First Couple's Chamber Pot -- August 5, 1999

Lifetime's Woman of the Year -- August 2, 1999

Thinking Over This Tax Cut Thing -- July 29, 1999

The John John Show -- July 26, 1999

America's One China, Two Alka Seltzer Policy -- July 22, 1999

The Politics of Speaking Ill of the Dead -- July 19, 1999

The Nasty Legacy -- July 15, 1999

All in a Slow News Week... -- July 12, 1999

Traps For The Young -- July 8, 1999

Remembering Michael Dukakis -- July 5, 1999

R.I.P., O.I.C. -- July 1, 1999

Mr. Clinton's Post-War Vengeance -- June 28, 1999

Guns, Cuisinarts and the Bill of Rights -- June 24, 1999

Attack of the Concerned Advocates -- June 21, 1999

FTC Nation -- June 17, 1999

The Very, Very Coincidental World of Bill and Hillary Clinton -- June 14, 1999

Water-boiling in Our Time -- June 10, 1999

Crisis and Peace -- June 7, 1999

Reinventing God -- June 3, 1999

On This Memorial Day -- May 31, 1999

The Un-McCarthy Era -- May 27, 1999

Unspeakable Spin -- May 25, 1999