DANIEL PINKWATER, Commentator: I can't take much more of this. If I hear one more learned commentator hold forth about, `The tragedy in Waco - who was at fault?' I'm going to start stockpiling arms myself. Is everybody crazy? Is there nothing else to report or discuss? Did Bill Clinton screw up? Did Janet Reno screw up? Did the FBI screw up? Why don't our law-enforcement agencies know just how to deal with three-star, stoned lunatics armed to the teeth, like they run into this sort of thing every day? The last TV piece I saw seriously examines the idea that what they should have done was build a set of prison walls around the Branch Davidian compound and just declare it a federal penitentiary.

Look, I'm sorry the children got killed. I was already sorry that those pathetic maniacs had children in their keeping. It was a very bad thing that happened. It is also bad when a school bus crashes into a culvert, and it's a bad thing that there are children suffering and dying in the former Yugoslavia. I have seen a cult close-up, and I can tell you that any time a charismatic con man assembles a bunch of willing marks, it's only a matter of time until everybody gets hurt, one way or another, with the possible exclusion of the con man.

The Koreshians were already doing everything imaginable to destroy their own children. Getting them killed was just the last possible expression of irresponsibility and neglect arising from being addled and distracted by their chosen leader's guidance. Unfortunately, the elements of personality which motivated David Koresh and his followers exist in human beings, and every so often, those elements come together with painful results. No matter what the FBI did, the tragedy would have played itself out. It's a shame. It's too bad. We don't like to hear about such things. May they all rest in peace, and may law-enforcement agencies develop some guidelines in case it ever happens again just this way.

Now, can we go back to stories about Amy Fisher and whether gays serving in the military should be allowed to say they're gay?