John Montgomery Presents This Week's	September 4, 1999	Creep Logo by Alan Fraser
	Janet Reno and the FBI
	Wallowing With Waco's Wackos

Waco. It used to be just a small town in central Texas. No more. These days, when you say the word "Waco", you're likely to get hit with a two hour dissertation on the abuses of the federal government, the conspiracy between the FBI and the Justice Department to rob citizens of the United States of all their civil rights, the Russian plan to use Y2K as an excuse to launch a nuclear attack, and Timothy McVeigh's nomination for American Hero. Waco is now also inexorably bound with wackos. Waco Wackos. Every group associated with this caper - the religious fanatics who died there, the agencies responsible for the siege, the congressional cranks who've been screaming about it ever since, and the paranoid anti-government terrorists who used it as an excuse for blowing up buildings - is seriously wacked out.

This week, the FBI revealed that during the April, 1993 confrontation at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, the agency did in fact fire at least two incendiary grenades, after six years of maintaining that it hadn't. Subsequently, the compound caught fire and 80 people inside, including 21 children, died. That ended a 51-day siege at the site, which was an attempt to arrest the Davidian's leader, David Koresh, who was accused of various illegal and immoral activities there.

Following the new revelations, US Attorney General Janet Reno, who as head of the Justice Department is the FBI's ultimate boss, said she was "very, very troubled" and didn't think "it's very good for my credibility." Good, Janet. You've finally said something that we all can agree with. For years, she's been the whipping girl for everyone who has some problem with the federal government in general and the Clinton administration in particular: She's incompetent. She's corrupt. She's cagey. She's naive. She's boinking Bill. She's a lesbian. Take your pick. It seems clear that at least some of that is true. She and top FBI officials claim ignorance: "Don't know nothing 'bout no pyrotechnic devices. And we didn't start the fire anyway - They did!"

It would be bad enough if Janet and her boys at the FBI didn't know what was going on in the trenches. But the worst effect of this massive screw up is that we're now going to have to endure months (or years) worth of investigations and pompous press statements. The Parade of the Piety Paragons has already begun:
 

You can bet that the next saint to raise his ugly head will be Newt Gingrich, if he can get it out of his mistress's snatch long enough.

And you know what's next. We can ignore the politicians, but the real Waco Wackos are the McVeigh militia protégés who are now using this latest escapade as another excuse to store up some more arms and kill them some feds.

Remember when it used to be the hippie, radical, left-wing, communist pinkos who hated the establishment? I think what we need right now to calm everyone down is a good old fashioned anti-government rally full of long hair and drugs. Maybe we could get one of those reformed "young and irresponsible" guys to lead it. Wouldn't it be great if he was from Texas? George W? You available?