I attended the 15th anniversary ceremony for the Oklahoma City bombing this morning at the Oklahoma City National Memorial — a must see for anyone visiting our city. As a member of the governor’s staff in 1995, I worked at ground zero, edited an oral history of the bombing, and later married a wounded survivor. This morning, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was among the speakers but I did not hear her warn about possible Republican terrorists — which would not have been wise, since a very large percentage of the crowd, made up of survivors, rescuers, and family members of the murdered, are decidedly right of center, this being Oklahoma. Her remarks were totally non-political. At a gathering over the weekend one survivor who lost his eye to McVeigh’s truck bomb asked me what we can do to “stop this Obama business.” He clearly knows the difference between dissent and mass homicide, as does anyone with a lick of sense.
It was a well done ceremony this morning. The crowd was especially warm in welcoming former governor Frank Keating and first lady Kathy Keating, and Fifth District congresswoman Mary Fallin, who was lieutenant governor in 1995 and who will likely be elected governor this fall.