Comments:  Recent publicity surrounding the Clinton sex scandal, not to mention the approach of election day in November, seems to be bringing the cyberloons out of the woodwork. Conspiracy theories, innuendo and outright political lies are proliferating online faster than anyone can keep up with them.

The most egregious example is the "Clinton Body Count," a list of 50 or so names of "friends" of Bill Clinton — some barely connected to the President at all — who allegedly died under "mysterious" circumstances. The text implies without citing direct evidence that Clinton is responsible for the murders of dozens of people who could have been in possession of "incriminating evidence." It's a masterwork of sleaze.

In mid-September a message went into circulation which quoted Bill Clinton calling for the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974 after the latter admitted to lying to the American people. While that quotation turned out to be roughly accurate, another message appeared soon thereafter attributing a similarly hypocritical statement to Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr. It proved to be a hoax, clearly invented for the express purpose of discrediting Starr.

More recently, the above statement attributed to Attorney General Janet Reno has been making the email rounds. It, too, is false and has no apparent purpose apart from convincing Christians that the current administration is their sworn enemy. Unfortunately, a lot of Christians who were apparently already convinced that the Clinton White House doesn't respect their views are buying into it.

According to CBS, Janet Reno did not appear on 60 Minutes in 1994, period. More to the point, even if she had made such an appearance, and even if she did hold this outrageous, unlikely opinion about Christians, the Attorney General of the United States would not have dared utter such impolitic words in public. Not if she valued her job.

Reasonable people who find themselves tempted to believe such nonsense owe it to themselves to read it a second and third time, and consider how implausible it is. If such a statement had actually had been broadcast over national television, the condemnation would have been instant and deafening. The statement would have been denounced from every pulpit, in every legislature, every newspaper and every radio talk show in the United States.

Background

In spite of the fact that most of us have only recently encountered this alleged statement of Reno's for the first time, it turns out to have a bit of history. A variant of the same text containing a direct reference to the 1993 Waco debacle was already circulating by fax and email in 1994. That version went as follows:

The rumored remarks attracted enough attention at the time to spur Rep. James V. Hansen of Utah to query the Justice Dept. as to its authenticity. Hansen's letter elicited the following response, dated March 7, 1995, from the DOJ Office of Legislative Affairs:

This responds to your January 23 letter inquiring about Attorney General Reno's alleged statement on the television program "60 Minutes" defining a "cultist."

The plain fact is that the quote is a hoax. The Attorney General has never been interviewed on "60 Minutes." She has never discussed cults, or tried to define one. There is nothing in the counterfeit quote that guides government policy.

The quote first appeared, to our knowledge, in the August 1993 "Paul Revere Newsletter" of the Christian Defense League in Flora, Illinois. The information came by telephone from a woman in Florida whose name was not noted. The newsletter subsequently ran a retraction.

Please note that the Christian Defense League is a far-right hate group known for spouting racist and anti-Semitic views, as well as paranoid conspiracy theories.

Two months later, the Reno quote was again branded a hoax, this time by The New Gun Week, a publication of the Second Amendment Foundation. Executive Editor John P. Tartaro quoted the above correspondence between Rep. Hansen and the Justice Department, adding:

Given Reno's other public statements, her public record in Florida and in federal office, and her responsibility for both the good and the bad of the Justice Department, it is not hard to understand why people might believe the "cultist" definition statement attributed to her. However, if someone concerned about her philosophy, her statements, and her unwillingness to publicly put to rest public worries about the Waco and Weaver cases, and a host of other flawed operations by FBI and other government law enforcement agencies which she supervised, were to publicly use the attributed quote in a speech or article, they could quickly be discredited by their opposition. Such an event would tend to also discredit any other comments made at the same time or at a later date, no matter how factual. Once you are publicly made to appear a kook, that will be the remaining public perception.

— The New Gun Week, April 28, 1995

Well, the "kooks" — in the present case, the same rabid pro-gun groups and far-right zealots who find the "Clinton Body Count" email convincing — are still at it, unfortunately. Thanks to the Internet, the phony Reno quote has remained on artificial life support ever since 1994, circulating constantly via email among extremist groups and cropping up from time to time in Usenet articles and on Websites.

A 1997 variant circulated by a Neo-Nazi organization alleged that Reno made the statement at a Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco luncheon. No date was given.

Currently, the quote can still be found displayed on Websites ranging from the wholly uncritical and conspiracy-oriented "Pissed Off American Page" to the slightly more cautious, conspiracy-oriented "Coming Earth Changes" millennial Website (defunct as of January 2000).

The authors of such pages would do well to heed the closing words of Second Amendment advocate John Tartaro:

It doesn't matter whether inaccurate information is intentionally or accidentally put in our paths, we have the obligation to know that something is accurate before we repeat it. And it doesn't matter whether the slander is directed at friends or enemies. Otherwise we are merely proving the accuracy of another quotation, this one from Mark Twain:

"It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart; the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you."

Is anyone listening?

Last updated: 10/24/98