Tonight, the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow will air, for the first time ever, audiotapes of Timothy McVeigh giving his own account of why he detonated a truck filled with explosives in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. It was our country’s most destructive and deadly act of terrorism on U.S. soil prior to September 11. The bombing murdered 168 people, including more than two dozen children under the age of 6. More than 800 people were injured; damage was estimated at $652 million. Yet, McVeigh’s recorded voice, as if speaking from the grave almost nine years after his execution, says, “I feel no shame for it.”

Maddow has said the program is designed to put antigovernment extremism in perspective. “It doesn’t have to lead to violence, but it can and it has,” says Maddow in promotional spots. “We ignore this, our own very recent history of antigovernment violence and the dangers of domestic terrorism, at our peril.” According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of antigovernment extremist groups spiked from 149 in 2008 to 512 (127 of them militias) in 2009…

Attorney Beth Wilkinson was the prosecutor who argued for the death penalty for McVeigh. “Obviously I am gratified to know he’ll be admitting to what he was convicted of,” says Wilkinson. “That said,” she adds, “I find it disturbing that these tapes will be played at such length, giving him—once again—a platform.” She hopes that the two-hour segment will provide a perspective on extremism, not just McVeigh’s…