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Later,
under the heading "How to use extremism as issue against Republicans,"
Morris told Clinton that "direct accusations" of extremism wouldn't
work because the Republicans were not, in fact, extremists. Rather,
Morris recommended what he called the "ricochet theory." Clinton would
"stimulate national concern over extremism and terror," and then, "when
issue is at top of national agenda, suspicion naturally gravitates to
Republicans." As that happened, Morris recommended, Clinton would use
his executive authority to impose "intrusive" measures against
so-called extremist groups. Clinton would explain that such intrusive
measures were necessary to prevent future violence, knowing that his
actions would, Morris wrote, "provoke outrage by extremist groups who
will write their local Republican congressmen." Then, if members of
Congress complained, that would "link right-wing of the party to
extremist groups." The net effect, Morris concluded, would be
"self-inflicted linkage between [GOP] and extremists." Clinton's
proposals -- for example, new limits on firearms and some explosives
that were opposed by the National Rifle Association -- had "an
underlying political purpose," Morris wrote in 2004 in another book
about Clinton, Because He Could. That purpose was "to lead voters to
identify the Oklahoma City bombing with the right wing. By making
proposals we knew the Republicans would reject...we could label them as
soft on terror an imply a connection with the extremism of the fanatics
who bombed the Murrah Federal Building."
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