COLUMN: Why I'm rooting for the bad guy

From Andrew Exum's, "Perilous Orthodoxy," Fall '99 From Andrew Exum's, "Perilous Orthodoxy," Fall '99Last week, a bomb went off by an abortion clinic in Asheville, N.C. Although no one was hurt and such assaults on women's clinics seem sadly routine these days, the story made national news because as of yesterday, the FBI hadn't ruled out the dastardly fugitive Eric Rudolph as a suspect.From Andrew Exum's, "Perilous Orthodoxy," Fall '99Last week, a bomb went off by an abortion clinic in Asheville, N.C. Although no one was hurt and such assaults on women's clinics seem sadly routine these days, the story made national news because as of yesterday, the FBI hadn't ruled out the dastardly fugitive Eric Rudolph as a suspect. For those of you who have forgotten about our friend Eric, allow me to serve up a quick refresher course. Rudolph, a former Army paratrooper and survivalist, is suspected of bombing an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Ala., just over a year ago. Shortly after police announced they were searching for Rudolph, he disappeared into the mountains of the vast Nantahala Wilderness in North Carolina, one of the densest wildernesses in America, replete with caves and hollows. On the other hand, there's something about the Eric Rudolph saga that appeals to me. Despite all of his heinous crimes, I've secretly been rooting for him in the past year. I'm not alone. When the chase began, a North Carolina entrepeneur printed up t-shirts that read "Run, Rudolph, Run!" The shirts sold out in a matter of hours. The public's fascination with and admiration of fugitives, however, goes beyond Eric Rudolph. A few months ago, convict Martin Gurule escaped from a maximum security prison in Texas using cardboard and duct tape for body armor and protection from the concertina wire coiled around the prison fences. Deputies fired dozens of rounds of ammunition at Gurule, who eluded Texas authorities until found dead seven days later. Writing for Time, Joel Stein had this to say about Gurule: "[Gurule] was so empathetic because he was an underdog: darkening his uniform with a pen, scaling two 10-ft., razor-studded fences, ducking a barrage of bullets, scampering through a marshy forest and evading more than 500 officers. Martin Gurule was a maverick with nothing left to lose up against a giant bureaucracy and some pretty cocky-sounding Texas prison officers, who were fooled by pillows he bunched together to make it look like him sleeping. Gurule was fighting The Man. He was messing with Texas. Are you getting this, Mr. Bruckheimer?" Stein likened the search for Gurule to a Hollywood movie plot. The public's fascination with the fugitive, Stein argued, had to do with its insatiable thirst for entertainment, which is exactly what the Eric Rudolph story offers, perhaps more so than Gurule's. So many subplots surround Rudolph's movie-worthy story. On the one hand, you have the odd tale of ex-Green Beret James "Bo" Gritz leading a band of vagabonds into the woods to search for Rudolph, only to attempt suicide weeks later. On the other hand, no pun intended, you have Rudolph's brother videotaping himself sawing off his own hand in protest of the FBI's search for his sibling. If only the Unabomer's family were so loyal. In the end, I'm left to contemplate why I secretly cheer for such a detestable villain and have so much interest in his story. I guess it's because I don't see myself on the run from the law anytime soon yet fantasize with the rest of America from time to time about what it must be like to be a fugitive. Stein writes, "We rooted for Gurule not because we cared about him but because it made a good story. While we may convince ourselves that we read the newspaper to become informed members of a democracy, we really read it for stories. I didn't want the Texas Fugitive Guy to re-enter society. I just wanted the chase to drag out into a page-turning action-mystery. Or a romantic tearjerker. Or any of those Blockbuster categories." Early last week, I was near Andrews kayaking on the Nantahala River. Leaving at the end of the day, I stopped to fill up my truck with gas when I noticed a T-shirt hanging in the window of the BP station. It had a certificate on it which read: "The State of North Carolina hereby awards this certificate of achievement to Eric Rudolph, 1998 Hide and Seek Champion." I bought the shirt.

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