WACO: WHAT, EXACTLY, ARE WE GOING TO BELIEVE?

Where the Clinton administration is concerned, it is truly becoming a question of finding out just how much Americans can stand. The legacy of this administration will be a tissue of lies: Lying when it is convenient, lying when it is difficult, lying when the truth would do. Lie about matters trivial (whether the late John Kennedy Jr. had been back to the White House before President Clinton hosted him). Lie about matters grave (such as national security and lobbing missiles at hapless Third World countries). Little children have learned about oral sex from this administration, and we all have been taught to lie. Lie at presidential press conferences.Lie under oath to criminal grand juries. Lie to congressional committees and also send your underlings out to repeat the lies that come from the top.

And then there is Waco. Where the disastrous 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian compound is concerned, appalling new revelations are pouring out nearly every day.

For six years, the FBI and the Clinton-Reno Justice Department had denied that pyrotechnic tear-gas canisters were used in the 51-day siege that ended on April 19, 1993. Ten days ago, that changed as Reno and the FBI were forced to admit such usage. Reno described herself as "very, very troubled" about these and other revelations. For some reason, Reno, whose crumbling credibility long ago made her a laughingstock, continues to insist that these combustible canisters, or grenades, played no role in igniting the ensuing fire.

Other troubling questions include whether Army commandos played an improper role in the siege that resulted in the deaths of 81 American citizens, including a score of children inside the compound. The use of elite Delta force commandos appears a violation of the 19th century posse comitatus law that severely restricts the use of our armed services in domestic actions against American citizens.

Now the attorney general says she will appoint an independent investigator to look into the whole incredible mess. Former U.S. Sen. John Danforth of St. Louis is among those being considered to head up the investigation. New hearings are planned in both houses of Congress. It will be tough for any such investigations to make sense of the hash the Clinton administration has made of this sad episode in American history. One legacy is certain to be that the most exaggerated fears of the most fevered conspiracy theorists will be given a boost that will keep them chattering to each other for years.