ABSTRACT
This chapter briefly reviews the steps in the danse macabre and then illustrates them with three encounters between federal law enforcement officials and right-wing extremists: Ruby Ridge, Idaho; Waco, Texas; and Oklahoma City. It compares the relative successes and failures of the Commission's moves and ruminates on the ethical and political challenges that remain. Human beings rarely are satisfied merely to cast aspersions. The proper treatment for social malignancy of any sort involves some combination of political medicamenta : the burning, poisoning, and/or the surgical excision of the evil-doer. Finally, the portraits failed to mention that child-welfare officials had found the Davidian children to be healthy, well-mannered, and seemingly content. Both Penance and the TRC hearings enact at a public level what can often be seen in face-to-face encounters, when one partner's trust has been betrayed, say, by adultery.
