Playing with Fire
Conspiracy theorists are walking into the
mainstream, with help from some politicians
JAMES D. BESSER WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
0
ne of the many unexpect-
ed in the strange congres-
sional hearings on the
Branch Davidian com-
pound assault in 1994 has been
a rash of anti-Semitic mail. That,
in turn, is symbolic of how Wash-
ington's crass politics of the day
can cultivate an increasing na-
tional atmosphere of distrust,
with a healthy dose of anti-Jew-
ish phobia tossed in.
Last week, Rep. Eliot Engel
(D-N.Y.) and Rep. Charles
Schumer (D-N.Y.) provided re-
porters with copies of hate mail
they have received in the wake
of congressional hearings into the
tragic 1994 assault in Waco,
Texas, and the fatal standoff at
Ruby Ridge, Idaho involving
white supremacist Randy
Weaver and his family.
Unfortunately, such notes
aimed at Jewish legislators are
not exactly headline news. But
these ravings point to the grow-
ing danger as to how legitimate
congressional hearings, and
Washington's new raw parti-
sanship, give credibility to Amer-
ica's most extreme and
anti-Semitic forces.
Jewish leaders worry that how
congressional leaders balance
their oversight responsibilities
and their political self-interest in
such hearings will determine
how our democracy withstands
the latest surge of intolerant ex-
tremism.
NEW HEIRS
In both cases, government
bungling and a reflexive effort to
prevent scrutiny of those failings
fueled wild conspiracy theories
that take off from fragments of
fact and soar into the wild blue
yonder of dangerous, bigoted fan-
tasy.
The far right — the political
heirs to the John Birchers and
Ku Klux Kianners — has always
promoted a world view that sees
dark conspiracies behind every
headline. Their list of malefac-
tors such as foreigners, interna-
tional bankers, Masons,
Catholics, Jews and — increas-
ingly — government bureau-
crats.
Promoters of such twisted out-
looks have adroitly exploited the
voters' irate desire for straight-
forward explanations for what
many see as their economic and
quality of life deterioration.
Those explosive feelings, gen-
erated by real changes in the
American
economy and decades of dizzy-
ing social change, are fed as well
by the conspiracy-oriented pas-
tors like televangelist Pat Robert-
son and legions of
ultra-conservative talk show
hosts.
Most Republicans in Congress
do not share the view that the
FBI and
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobac-
co and Firearms (BATF) are
agents of a sinister federal con-
spiracy. Waco and Ruby Ridge,
they know, were examples of gov-
ernment bungling, at worst.
But the passions such tragic
incidents ignite have a certain
unresistable political utility.
Both incidents have entered
the mythology of the anti-gun
control
movement, whose power was
strikingly confirmed in the 1994
congressional elections when the
National Rifle Association helped
to topple a number of pro-gun
control incumbents.
Congressional
investigations are
legitimate.
Interests sitting at
the table is not.
It's no accident that the NRA,
which has described government
officials in terms that conjure im-
ages of Nazi government thugs,
has a place at the table at the
Waco hearings — a remarkable
blurring of the line between con-
gressional investigators and spe-
cial interest groups.
Waco offers a compelling op-
portunity to embarrass a vul-
nerable Clinton administration,
paraticularly Attorney General
Janet Reno — a kind of Satanic
figure to the far right.
INTO THE MAINSTREAM
The danger is that the far
right's core ideas, with their
strong anti-Semitic and racist
overtones, are inexorably work-
ing into the political main-
stream. And that's happening
with a strong boost from politi-
cal leaders calling themselves
conservative, but whose actions
represent something quite dif-
ferent.
To a frightening extent, many,
but not all, GOP leaders have
embraced the core ideas of the
far-right extremists; their con-
cepts sell well in an age of suspi-
cion and anti-government rage.
By intentionally exploiting
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