For half of a century we've been watching rituals of retribution. Countless entertainment shows on TV have presented certain vengeance as dramatic justice. In time for the last commercial the designated bad guys got what was coming to them. The surfaces of pathos, anguish, and suffering are readily available without scripts, actors, or set designers. Around the country local news programs air plenty of crime sensations with yellow police tape in the background.
Cable channels strive to offer the latest shootings in progress.
The camera work and sound quality were crystal clear. McVeigh's crime, we're told, was the deadliest act of terrorism ever committed on U.S. soil. Among the 168 people McVeigh killed were 19 young children. It's a phrase that disturbed some media consumers a decade ago during the Gulf War, when it was the euphemism of choice for top Pentagon officials and many American reporters. Unrepentant and preferring to undergo capital punishment now rather than later, McVeigh has declined to appeal his death sentence, a move that would have delayed his execution for years.