THE TERRORIST NEXT DOOR
ROTHENBERG, ELLIOT C.
THE TERRORIST NEXT DOOR by Elliot C. Rothenberg SARA JANE OLSON is an exemplary citizen by Minnesota standards. She lives in a tony, upper-middle-class neighborhood of St. Paul. She campaigns for...
...She runs a bookstore which has a large mural portraying a female factory worker with her fist raised in defiance...
...She is an activist in a liberal church...
...Paul in the last election, attacked the police for arresting her...
...He expressed disappointment, though, that he was never invited to any of her parties...
...What would Pappas suggest is a real crime...
...The moderator of Minnesota Public Television's weekly Almanac program, one of the state's leading arbiters of political correcti-tude, snarled on her show at an FBI agent, "Don't you have better things to do...
...The only problem with this idyllic picture is that Sara Jane Olson is not Sara Jane Olson...
...John Darlington, "We love Sara Jane...
...She refused to allow Soliah to become a fugitive once again...
...Her husband is a doctor who shares her political passions...
...She has been prominent for years in African, Central American, and other "peace and justice" causes...
...Hearst wrote in her autobiography that Soliah took part in a robbery where Soliah or a partner killed a bank customer with a shotgun...
...For Lynn Musgrave, Soliah is "a pacifist and liberal Democrat who supports gun control...
...Paul police and FBI agents arrested her...
...She is a serious cook...
...This time, Ramsey County district judge Kathleen Gearin did not make the same mistake...
...Ordered back to her cell, Soliah exited the courtroom, according to the St...
...Soliah has been under indictment in Los Angeles since 1976...
...Governor Jesse Ventura announced that, despite the protests of Soliah's supporters, he would extradite Soliah for trial in California...
...It was reminiscent of a hearing years earlier in Philadelphia where future senator Arlen Specter and others of the best of that city convinced a judge to release on bail Ira Einhorn, the so-called Unicorn Killer, arrested for murdering his girlfriend...
...She campaigns for liberal political candidates...
...Democratic party leaders have been unabashedly at the forefront...
...A front-page commentary headlined "Justice or what's just" in Minnesota's largest newspaper, the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, asked rhetorically, "Should model citizen Sara Jane Olson...
...Elliot C. Rothenberg is a Minneapolis attorney...
...We were all going to protests then...
...Paul mayor in the election before Pappas ran—and St...
...Many of these worthies packed a court hearing to entreat a judge to release Soliah on modest bail...
...Her real name is Kathleen Soliah, and she has been a fugitive from justice in California for more than a quarter century...
...Don't they have any real crimes to fight...
...His book The Taming of the Press will be published this fall...
...He called the statements of Pappas and the other politicians "beyond belief...
...she asked...
...Maybe "The Mind" is not such a bad nickname after all...
...One Minnesota politician these days, however, falls outside the prevailing pattern of political correctness...
...She goes about working for justice in an unjust world...
...Perhaps it is because the victims were just ordinary middle-class working folks who did not have the time or inclination to demonstrate in favor of the domestic and foreign causes in vogue from time to time...
...A popular gossip columnist for the same newspaper said that Soliah has paid any debt she owed society...
...On June l6, her luck ran out...
...Said Rev...
...To leaders of her church, Soliah is a saint...
...Macalester College history professor Peter Rachleff called Soliah "quite progressive...
...In a television interview, Pappas demanded Soliah's release and harped on her talents as a "wonderful gourmet dinner party host...
...Paul Pioneer Press, "in a manner fit for an actress, blowing kisses to her supporters...
...State representative Andy Dawkins—the Democratic party's candidate for St...
...The dominant local media echoed the politicians...
...Amid all this solicitude for the suspect, none of these people has expressed any comparable compassion for the dead bank customer and other targets of their friend's crimes...
...A theater director was even more flamboyant in her support...
...Apparently for everyone except herself...
...All this notwithstanding, Minnesota's political-media-cultural elite has closed ranks in support of Soliah...
...She is a model for many of us...
...be tried for crimes committed a quarter century ago...
...She has demonstrated through years of social actions and potluck that she is rehabilitated...
...State senator Sandy Pappas, the Democratic candidate for mayor of St...
...She is a runner...
...Guthrie Theater veteran actor Stephen Pelinski said that the entire local theater community supports Soliah, "one of our most advanced actors...
...The suffering of these victims and their families does not seem to matter...
...Paul City Council member Jay Benanav called Soliah "a great citizen of our community...
...As a combat terrorist in what was called the Symbionese Liberation Army, Soliah attempted to murder police officers by placing bombs under their cars, helped kidnap Patricia Hearst, and held up banks...
...After his release, Einhorn fled the country and never returned...
...She acts in feminist roles in local theater companies...
...Another minister, Jolyn Fontaine, said that Soliah "was really a person who was sharing God's love in the community...
...There is no evidence that any were gourmet cooks...
...But what may be the most remarkable feature of this episode is the manifest contempt for the rule of law by those who purport to be Minnesota's leaders...
Vol. 4 • July 1999 • No. 42
