There are those who say that Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler's propaganda minister, was the preeminent master of deception in the 20th century.

I say President Bill Clinton, along with Attorney General Janet Reno and most of Clinton's cabinet, rank right up there with this "master of deception." If you doubt that, ask yourself these questions: How else could millions of Americans be fooled into believing the kinds of things Clinton and Co. have told us about racism over the years? How else could millions of Americans allow the president and Congress to pass so-called "hate crime" laws based on non-existent threats or bogus "evidence"?

Regarding the plethora of "hate crimes legislation," this is a coup de grace. It is perhaps the most stellar example of how easily Americans can be fooled into allowing their leaders to punish them based on the flimsiest of reasons. In essence, that is the crux of racist propaganda -- to provide lawmakers with a further impetus to institute more control over we the people, despite the lack of a good reason. That's because all hate crime legislation is little more than "thought control," where a criminal president and bumbling lawmakers are presupposing what is in somebody's mind when they commit a crime.

Oh-so very often these people are just dead wrong. Yet, none of these laws is ever repealed, much less modified to reflect the truth of the matter.

A great example of the administration's skilled use of racist propaganda was the creation of a false epidemic of "racially motivated" church arson. Beginning in 1995, following what was said to be a "rash" of such burnings and bombings, the president proclaimed the existence of this major crisis, blamed it on whites, apologized on behalf of the entire white population, then created the National Church Arson Task Force to "deal" with the "problem."

For good measure, Clinton threw in a story about his "personal experience with this kind of hatred," when, as a boy, he witnessed many such burnings in his own home state of Arkansas. Within days that story was disproved, exposed as a cheap propaganda stunt by a shallow man.

Even the vice president chimed in, and Reno -- at Clinton's urging -- vowed to get these white "racists" for the hatred they were spreading.

Well, well. After much of the smoke has cleared, can you say, "hoax"?

After four-plus years of investigative work and after examining the origins of 834 church fires, Clinton's precious task force has discovered that relatively few of them were "racially motivated." In fact, in the most recent "breakthrough" in these cases, investigators have arrested two people who burned dozens of churches because they were avowed satanists. Yes, they're white, but they're not racists mind you. They're admitted, avowed satanists -- people who hate God and churches attended by people of all races and denominations.

There are some things Americans need to know, now that this "crisis" has also been exposed as just another propagandistic racist fraud on the American people.

First, when are all the laws that have been passed based upon the lies of the Clinton propaganda machine going to be repealed? Secondly, when are lawmakers going to admit that burning churches for any reason is just as bad as burning them for racist reasons? Third, how many millions will never hear the truth, that all of these church burnings were not racially motivated? Fourth, how many will never hear that in reality, churches attended by blacks, whites, Hispanics, Asians, and other minorities were also burned -- in unequally high numbers?

I can tell you that it is extremely likely that the race-baiting, propaganda-spewing Clinton administration will never make as big a deal out of disseminating these facts about these cases as they made about asserting -- before one case was even examined -- that all of them just "had to be" racially motivated. I'd love for the president to prove me wrong.

"Church fires have victimized congregations and assaulted communities," said James E. Johnson, the Treasury Department's undersecretary for enforcement, when he announced the most recent arrests in these cases. He's right, of course. But when the propaganda ministers and deception artists skew the facts about these burnings -- in a selfish effort to win some political points -- the numbers of "assaulted and victimized" people goes far beyond the congregations of these churches. It spreads to every man, woman and child in this country. Everyone suffers because of these lies.

In the Bible, Jesus and His disciples repeatedly warn about such deception. In our earthly lives, we do things like teach our kids never to trust strangers, we admonish each other to "question authority," and we are often cynical about anyone who asks us to "trust" them before they've earned that trust.

But too few Americans will hold their leaders to the same standards and demand they abide by the same principles the rest of us employ in our own lives.

When somebody like Clinton -- who has a long history of using propaganda and deception for personal gain -- makes blanket proclamations such as those about "racially motivated" church burnings, we ought to be suspicious until he's proven correct. It would help if Congress would get out of its protective shell and actually research issues like these by talking and listening to more people than just those few lobbyists and special interest spokesmen who either have an axe to grind or an agenda all their own before passing these kinds of laws. Clinton has personally screwed Congress dozens of times, yet it blindly follows his lead on issue after issue without being shown one scrap of evidence that he is right.

The president, as creator of this false racial church burning "crisis" now owes it to all Americans to stand up and admit his earlier assertions were just plain wrong. Next, he should ask Congress to repeal so-called "hate crimes" laws already on the books and discourage them from passing new pending hate crime legislation. There is no basis in truth or reality for them.

Americans don't need a Goebbels-like propaganda minister in the White House, nor do they need legislators who rule by propaganda. This is not the 1930s, we don't live in Nazi Germany, and there is no room for such behavior in a constitutional republic.