ANN COULTER by Ann Coulter

THE FBI'S INCENDIARY LIES

If the Branch Davidians gassed by the government in Waco, Texas, had been crazy black militants, there would have been arrests of government officials by now. Don't flinch; you know it's true. But the lies, cover-ups, deceptions and law-breaking by government agents at Waco have, by and large, never been punished.

The New York Times has run more editorials on campaign finance reform in the past six years than it has on this military-style assault on American citizens. Liberals believe the government (BEGIN ITALS)should(END ITALS) be able to kill sincere religious-believers.

As the amazing documentary "Waco: The Rules of Engagement" reveals, the Branch Davidians were not a deranged religious "cult." Presenting a Biblical scholar and a professor of psychology and law (from the University of North Carolina and Harvard University, respectively), the film establishes that Koresh was not the demonic cult leader favored in media descriptions of the group. Nor did he have psychopathic criminal tendencies.

Indeed, the Branch Davidians have been around since before David Koresh was even born, originating about 50 years ago as a spin-off from the Seventh-Day Adventists.

Not that any of this would make a difference to The New York Times. They think Episcopalians are a "cult." On Easter Day this year, The New York Times lead editorial described the big occasion thus: "(T)he story Easter celebrates is that of one man maintaining his faithfulness before the military might of an oppressive government and the taunts of the crowd, a lesson of integrity and determination that has molded much of civilization as we know it."

That is a real quote. The Times actually believes that thousands of years after he walked the Earth, millions of people across the globe still worship Mr. Christ ... because of his remarkable capacity to withstand "the taunts of the crowd." (Maybe no one at the Times is a practicing Christian, but doesn't anyone over there even know one?)

In any event, and unfortunately for the Branch Davidians, they bore all the characteristics that permit the elites to look the other way if the government happens to gas you. The Davidians' enthusiasm for their religion was bordering on the unseemly. They believed in the Bible. (BEGIN ITALS)And(END ITALS) they were gun-owners. If only they had been demanding taxpayer funds to take photos of men with bullwhips up their anuses, the Left would have been in a high dudgeon about the grave threat to our civil liberties if any government official said anything mean about them, much less killed them.

Alas, the Davidians were mere God-believers, and not a nest of pederasts. Consequently, much as the Left loathes law enforcement, it was forced to side with the government on this one. The fact that the government lies incessantly about the raid on Waco must sweeten this bitter pill.

Most recently, the FBI was caught lying about the use of pyrotechnic tear gas canisters. For six years the agency has sworn up and down that no incendiary devices were deployed on the day the Branch Davidian compound burned. Whoops.

The government's new and revised claim is that none of the pyrotechnic tear gas canisters were fired at the compound where the Davidians were located. As one FBI official explained to the public on NBC recently, "(t)his was no grand conspiracy. ... (The incendiary devices) were not used anywhere near the wooden structure (where the Davidians were). They were used in the construction area that was north of the structure and not joined, except by a cement tunnel into a buried bus."

I hate to be a stickler for logic here, but why exactly was the FBI lobbing tear gas canisters at the nonresidence portion of the compound in the first place?

The FBI now says: Not to worry, there were no people in that structure anyway. But if the FBI knew the separate structure was vacant, why were they firing tear gas into it? Wasn't the alleged purpose of the tear gas to knock out the Davidians -- and not to gas them or burn down the compound? If there were no Davidians to be teargassed in that other structure, why were they shooting in tear gas canisters?

At least the FBI has the lingo down, denying that there was a "grand conspiracy": Accuse the people who say you're lying of being "conspiracy theorists." This is especially effective when explaining your last lie.