Here s the deal. The government, by definition, cannot commit crimes. What it does may superficially look criminal, by the standards applied to private individuals. For example, if you surrounded John Danforth s house with tanks and sprayed poison gas into his living room, you would be in a heap of trouble. But that s the way the system works.
Government makes the laws, and decides what s right and wrong.
When it says it isn t doing wrong, it s not. Danforth, of course, is a Republican. And even Republican conservatives are celebrating his silly report. What the government did wrong in the Waco case was on the order of bungling and defensiveness, not evil or malice. And now, the clincher, the dread words that remind you that Republicans are just as in love with power as the Democrats, and that Clintonian misrule will be replaced by Bushian misrule.