THE GUARDIAN: Growing concern in White house [sic] about anti-government mood / Trust in US government at its lowest point for half a century
Bill Clinton today warned politicians and commentators to tone down their rhetoric for fear of inflaming hate groups and provoking violence, as a poll suggested that public trust in the US government is at its lowest point for half a century.
Amid growing concern in the White House about the anti-government mood and a marked rise in radical fringe groups, Clinton said the internet made it easier to spread ideas to reach "the unhinged". The worry is not so much over populist movements such as the Tea Party but the revival of extreme groups that have been encouraged by general anti-government sentiment.
On the 15th anniversary of the 1995 Oklahoma bombing, the worst terrorist attack in the US before 9/11, Clinton wrote in the New York Times: "We are again dealing with difficulties in a contentious, partisan time … As we exercise the right to advocate our views, and as we animate our supporters, we must all assume responsibility for our words and actions before they enter a vast echo chamber and reach those both serious and delirious, connected and unhinged."
Clinton said it should not be forgotten what drove the Oklahoma bombers. "They took to the ultimate extreme an idea advocated in the months and years before the bombing by an increasingly vocal minority: the belief that the greatest threat to American freedom is our government and that public servants do not protect our freedoms but abuse them." >>> Ewen MacAskill, Washington | Monday, April 19, 2010
