Although the eight years of the Clinton Presidency involved a relatively peaceful domestic scene, a number of singular events would impact the times.  Of course the bombing of the World Trade Center topped the list. But there were three separate incidents, tragically connected, that rattled the country.  These events pitted the government's widening policing powers against those who felt called to challenge exactly those growing powers.  The contest became very deadly, and a lot of innocent individuals were caught in the middle.  The whole thing was reminiscent of the semi-insane behavior of John Brown and the way in 1859 he attempted to bring on a massive slave uprising because he personally felt that the government was not doing its job.  John Brown's mini-rebellion got a lot of people killed.  And so also did a lot of people in these three events of the 1990s.

The first of these events occurred in a very remote part of northern Idaho near the Canadian border, at a place called Ruby Ridge.  The Weaver family had moved there in the 1980s to escape the "corruption" of American society, actually believing that some kind of apocalyptic event was about to hit the world.  Problems for the Weaver family began with a land dispute with a neighbor, in which the Weavers won a court case and small financial award, and the neighbor retaliated by informing the FBI and the Secret Service that the father of the family, Randy, had made threats on the life of the President, the Pope and the Idaho governor (all lies fabricated by the angry neighbor).  This then put the Weaver family under watch by the federal authorities.  And here is where the matter got completely out of control – by government action ... not through anything that the Weavers had done.

Using a government informant that Weaver thought was a friend, Weaver was invited by that person in 1986 to attend meetings of the World Aryan Congress, and then the "friend" reported on Weaver for the next few years to federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) authorities.  Then in 1990 ATF charged Weaver with a flimsy firearms case, in order to get him to also become an informant, which he refused to do.

Thus, after building up an intricate plan of attack, the ATF in January of 1981 moved to arrest Weaver.  To do so, ATF agents posed along the side of the road as broken-down motorists, in order to intercept him away from his "dangerous" home – people that Weaver stopped to assist.  Then the warrant sent to Weaver for him to appear in court failed (accidently?) to get the right date of the hearing. Thus Weaver, naturally, did not show up on schedule.

This then became cause for more serious action when Weaver, suspecting a federal government trap, refused to give himself up to authorities when they came to arrest him for his failure to show up in court on schedule.  Now a long stand-off developed, bringing the federal authorities to develop a plan to bring the "dangerous" Weaver in (who had actually at that point still committed no particular crime, except the one growing from the government's own failure to get the dates right on a warrant).

Taking the next months to try to build a stronger case against Weaver, the federal authorities believed they finally had cause when a news helicopter claimed (falsely) that it had been fired on when it was covering the story of the stand-off above the Weaver cabin.  Now the feds could move on the Weaver family.

Thus in August of the next year (1992) six Federal Marshals were sent to raid his home. Shooting broke out in the woods nearby when his fourteen-year-old son and his dog and Weaver's friend Harris went out to see why the dog was making such a commotion, and a firefight broke out, in which Harris was wounded, the boy and the dog were killed, and a U.S. Marshall was killed.  Now the Marshals were furious and moved on the main house, a government sniper killing Weaver's wife when she went to the door to let Harris back into the house.  Then for the next twelve days a stand-off took place, as several hundred state and federal officers took position around the house while agents negotiated a Weaver surrender.

In a follow-up investigation it was revealed that the Federal agents had disregarded horribly the Rules of Engagement (ROE).  And they also had virtually no case against Weaver.  Thus the trial which took place the next year (1993) did not go well for the federal government.  Weaver was ultimately acquitted of all charges, except the one of missing the court date, which cost him an additional four months in prison and a $10,000 fine.  Charges against Harris, who had shot the Marshall during the firefight in the woods, were dismissed on the grounds that he had merely responded to being fired on by individuals who had not identified themselves as federal officers.  In 1997 a second attempt to convict Harris would be attempted, charges thrown out by a judge because this constituted "double-jeopardy" (a person cannot be tried twice for the same crime).

Ultimately the surviving members of the Weaver family brought a $200 million suit against the federal government for wrongful death (the Weaver son and wife), but settled out of court for an award of a little over $3 million (although the prosecuting attorney later confessed that had the Weavers actually gone to trial, they probably would have indeed won the $200 million award).

The whole "Ruby Ridge episode" became famous, as books and even songs were written and a CBS miniseries (1996) and a follow-up Hollywood movie were produced based on this horrible tragedy.

It was a huge embarrassment for the U.S. government, which subsequently undertook to review its arresting procedures.  But this would not occur until another tragedy of a like nature had taken place.

This other event took place a half-year later outside of Waco, Texas, in early 1993.  Some of the people of Waco had been complaining for months about illegal doings (suspicions concerning polygamy, child abuse and possession of illegal weapons) going on at a large commune located just outside of town, the Mount Carmel compound of the Branch Davidians.  These religious millennialists (a breakaway group from the Seventh-Day Adventists) were operating in Waco under the power of its messianic leader, David Koresh.

A report of firearms in the commune finally brought the commune to the attention of federal (ATF) officials.  But Koresh refused to recognize the right of the ATF to search his compound.  He had broken no laws.  A bitter standoff thus resulted between the Davidians – who understood this confrontation with the authorities as the arrival of the "end times" – and the federal police on February 28th, when the police attempted to force their way into the compound.  Four federal agents and five Davidians died and more than 20 other federal officials were injured, some very seriously, in a gun battle that erupted between the Davidians and the ATF.  The ATF thus backed off.

Finally on April 19th, after failed negotiations accompanied by a long effort to squeeze the Davidians out of the compound (cutting off their water supply, for instance), a federal force of 900 officers (now including FBI agents) made its move on the compound, not only with guns and disabling tear gas unleashed but with armored tanks crashing into the compound.  And then the compound broke into flames, and 76 Davidians (including numerous women and 25 children) died in what soon turned into a blazing inferno (only nine Davidians got out of the compound alive).

The whole event became a national scandal, and the ATF undertook not only an investigation as to the cause of the fire but again now also a review of its enforcement policies.

The nine surviving Davidians were tried and sentenced on various charges, the sentencing subsequently going through years of appeal, all the way to the Supreme Court, at which point the sentences were greatly reduced.  Finally, in 2007, the last of the Davidians was released from prison.

Then on April 19, 1995 Gulf War Veteran Timothy McVeigh and his accomplice Terry Nichols parked a van loaded with 5,000 pounds of explosives (ammonium nitrate fertilizer) in the parking lot next to the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, explosives which when detonated took out the front portion of the building, killing 168 people (19 of them children at a day-care center located on the second floor), injuring also 680 others and causing extensive damage reaching blocks away (damage totaling over a half-billion dollars).  McVeigh was soon thereafter stopped for a license plate violation, and arrested for illegal weapons possession.  It then did not take the police long to link him to the bombing; Nichols was soon also identified and arrested.

McVeigh's ultimate explanation as to why he would undertake such an outrageously cruel attack on innocent victims was that he hated the U.S. government, and the attack was undertaken in revenge for the Ruby Ridge and Waco disasters caused by federal authorities.  The date picked for McVeigh's bombing was set exactly for the second anniversary of the Waco tragedy, April 19th.

McVeigh was found guilty in 1997 and executed in 2001; Nichols was given life imprisonment.  And Congress was led to pass the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, calling for stronger protection around federal facilities.

Meanwhile the nation was shaken by yet another huge catastrophe (which, however, had nothing to do with the previous three events).  On the night of June 12, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson, former wife of football star O.J. Simpson, and her boyfriend Ron Goldman were found stabbed and killed in front of her home.  A black leather glove with blood on it was found at the murder scene the next day. The police then moved on to O.J. Simpson's house, ostensibly to see if he was okay.  But he was not there (he had taken a flight to Chicago that night), but significantly the matching bloodied glove was found in a search of his home.  Thus an arrest warrant was issued for Simpson.  DNA tests later confirmed that the blood belonged to the two victims.

Simpson lawyers convinced the LA police to simply let celebrity Simpson turn himself in (where could he hide?).  But the time came and Simpson did not show up, with hundreds of reporters awaiting the event.  Eventually he was spotted on an LA freeway in the back seat of a white Bronco, and news helicopters and a parade of police cars followed behind the slow-moving vehicle.  Simpson was inside with his gun pointed to his own head, with people phoning him pleading with him to put down the gun and turn himself in.  At this point 95 million Americans were tuned in to the TV broadcasts covering this event (the most-watched ever).  Finally that evening he drove to his home and surrendered.

The trial which followed (January to October 1995) was the most-watched event of its kind ever.  Simpson's lawyers assembled the "Dream Team" of expert criminal lawyers, headed up by Johnny Cochrane, who would basically argue that the many examples of evidence found at Simpson's home could have been planted by racist police, and thus the entire case rested on whose explanation of all the evidence pointing to Simpson as the murderer would the jury believe.  Other evidence was entered in the form of O.J.'s frequent episodes of abuse of his wife Nicole, in which the police had been called eight times to the Simpson home over the matter.  As to police prejudice against Simpson, only in the last case was he actually arrested for his behavior, the picture of his battered wife in that case put before the jury.  Cochran continued to use the race argument, calling detective Mark Furman a genocidal racist, the personification of evil, again playing to racial feelings of the predominantly Black jury, thus directing them away from the extensive material evidence in the case.

And the defense strategy of playing the race card worked.  On October 3, 1995, Simpson was quickly acquitted on both counts of murder.  Hundreds of police, who were on alert for a major Black uprising if Simpson were found guilty, could thus stand down.  They should not have been worried.  There was no way that a predominantly Black jury¹ was going to convict Simpson.

¹Black jury members included even a former member of the Black Panthers – who in the announcement of the verdict, raised the Black Power fist salute to Simpson!

On October 16, 1995 a huge number (estimates vary widely, a source of bitter controversy) of Black men gathered in Washington, D.C. for the "Million Man March" called by Black Muslim (Nation of Islam) leader Louis Farrakhan.  The purpose of the March was to present a bolder and more honorable picture of the Black male, who at that point was suffering from not only minority status within a largely White world, but even minority status in a Black world, one in which women seemed to be all that was holding together what was left of the Black family.  The general theme of the huge gathering, and the various speeches broadcast from the stand located in front of the Capitol building, was the need for Black men to repent of harsh treatment of women, to take responsibility in bringing the Black home to greater glory, to find ways to bring Black communities together, and ultimately to bring the Black world into full harmony with God.

The fact that the event was specifically focused on men and men's issues, brought some adverse feminist reactions from within the world of Black women.  Whites generally had no comments about such a racial gathering, which was peaceful and dignified throughout.  Ultimately the question that people asked was: would this indeed help the terrible state of Black manhood (so many sleeping in the streets, or finding themselves in prison, or finding larger purpose only in gang membership), absent from families in which women have been left the task of raising young men (and women) to adulthood?

The last years of Clinton's presidency were troubled by revelations coming out in January of 1998 concerning extramarital sex going on between the President and a young female White House intern, Monica Lewinsky (extramarital affairs not exactly an unprecedented activity among presidents and congressmen – or for that matter, the rich, the famous and the holders of political power).

As light was brought to Clinton's affair, other women stepped forward, claiming that they too had had affairs with Clinton, some of them somewhat coerced.

The Republicans now jumped at the chance to "Watergate" (or "Monicagate" as it was termed at the time) Clinton, and proceeded to bring impeachment charges against Clinton, to take down an otherwise very popular president.  So yes, the Republicans also now were willing to take up Third-World political processes to gain some supposed political advantage.  This was not good.

In any case, Congress fell short of destroying the Clinton presidency, as the heavily Republican House of Representatives nonetheless only narrowly voted impeachment (December 1998) on the basis that Clinton had lied under oath about the scandal (but did this amount to "high crimes and misdemeanors"?).  But by this time it had become apparent that all this political furor seemed to stir as much public irritation against what appeared to be purely Republican political opportunism (which indeed it was).  Thus also, the Senate, even with a large Republican majority, failed to convict Clinton of wrong-doing (February 1999), voting roughly 50–50 on two counts of criminal behavior, far under the two-thirds vote needed for Senatorial conviction.

This event had also birthed the "moveon.com" email campaign which not only helped to stir up widespread irritation ("we need to get past this Republican lynching and 'move on' with more important business") but soon moveon.com became the Democratic Party's most effective and enduring mobilizer of support among the nation's young, "wired" internet generation.  Indeed, moveon.com is still actively serving the Democratic Party in this same capacity to this very day.

During all this troubled time of sex scandal, Billy Graham's Christian counsel became critically important to Clinton personally (both Clintons, actually), and to the Clinton marriage.  The toughness of Christian forgiveness now had to be embraced, and the Clintons needed all the guidance they could get in this matter. Graham's counsel proved absolutely critical to the Clintons' ability to move on past this disaster.  Graham, of course, would be criticized for his assistance in this matter.  But to Graham (and others, of course) forgiveness had always been a central part of the gospel.  And it helped immensely in getting the Clintons onward past this deeply humiliating experience.

While the Clinton scandal was under public scrutiny, the spotlight suddenly turned on Gingrich – about his private life (and the private lives of other Republicans, for similar reasons).  Gingrich was having his own problems mixing sex and politics. Gingrich had divorced his first wife in 1980 to marry a woman he was having an affair with, only to start up an affair with another woman² in the mid-1990s, which was still going on at the same time that he himself was leading the political assault on Clinton for Clinton's extramarital affairs.  When this was made public (as it was bound to be), the hypocrisy of it all undercut Gingrich greatly, and actually increased sympathy from the nation for Clinton.

Sensing a chink in Gingrich's armor, House Democrats began to put forward a barrage (84) of ethics charges against House Speaker Gingrich.  Though eventually cleared of all but one of these charges, Gingrich's political image was deeply tarnished by these accusations – which, of course, was the sole purpose of the charges.  Then sensing a wounded leader in their midst, even House Republicans began to move against him, voting with the Democrats (395 to 28) to reprimand Gingrich for the use of a tax-exempt college course, Renewing American Civilization, "for political purposes."³

Then when the Republicans lost a number of seats in the 1998 House election, Gingrich announced his resignation – not only of his position as House Speaker but also of his seat in the House of Representatives, refusing to serve the new term to which he had just been re-elected overwhelmingly by his Georgia constituency. Gingrich was simply dropping out of all national leadership.  He would continue to have a strong interest in America's political dynamics – but now only as a prolific writer and TV commentator.

And most interesting, Clinton ended his presidency in 2001 with a 65% approval rating, the highest of any departing president since Truman!

²Calista Bisek, whom he would marry in 2000.  But ultimately this marriage would prove deeply transformative for Gingrich spiritually – and he would join her Catholic faith in 2008. Following his religious conversion, Gingrich in fact took on a distinctly Christian tone in his public appearances and editorial commentaries.

³However, the IRS, in also looking into this matter, cleared Gingrich in 1999 of committing any tax violations.