The cruelty with which Timothy McVeigh closed the trial on the most heinous act of terrorism in the nation’s history was a further stab into the hearts of his victims’ friends and relatives. His words showed a man not only free of remorse but convinced of his own righteousness.

Just before federal Judge Richard P. Matsch sentenced Mr. McVeigh to death for 11 counts, including one count of first-degree murder for each of eight federal law-enforcement officers who died in the explosion, the defendant broke his silence. He quoted a brief passage of a 1928 ruling by Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis.

“Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.” Mr. McVeigh’s allusion, clearly, was to the travesty of the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas. Unspoken in court last week, Justice Brandeis’ quote continues this way: “Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.”

What was said and unsaid conveys two thoughts on Mr. McVeigh’s mind. First, that he indeed responded to the government’s actions in Waco — by bombing the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995. This is curious for a man who has proclaimed his innocence throughout his time in jail. And second, that even while committing this crime, he was somehow not entirely guilty. He is suggesting that the months he spent planning and plotting, of cross-country arrangements and elaborate coverups were not entirely of his own devising, that the government must share blame, that he is, ultimately, also a victim.

It would be hard to think of a greater insult to the 168 people killed in the explosion or the people who still grieve for them. Perhaps Mr. McVeigh’s thinking comes from an inability to grasp just how terrible his crime was. Perhaps a man who prides himself on speaking harshly about the government cannot face the great evil in himself.