COLUMN LEFT/ BOB GUCCIONE JR. : Will Clinton Get His Act Together? : So far, the Just-Do-It President has given us Janet Reno and Waco, nothing to cheer about.

In the hour that the Branch Davidian compound burned to the ground, the Clinton presidency came to a sobering crystallization. Like a rubber band stretched over 51 of the First 100 Days that we love to measure new presidents by, the apocalyptic images from Waco, Tex., suddenly snapped the nation into reality. It was not so much whether responsibility for the horror rested with Bill Clinton; it was the realization that tragic events can be unstoppable, no matter what resources are spent trying to prevent them, and that the essence of leadership is how it handles a crisis, not how long it goes without encountering one. Clinton didn’t handle the situation well, although, as usual, he acquitted himself in front of our national jury, the media. At first he was invisible--a terrible sign. Then, as he emerged and regained his form, like a parade float inflating, he absorbed questions of responsibility with the rhetoric of accepting it.

Waco exposed the potentially calamitous weaknesses in this government: Whereas it’s irrelevant, now, to second-guess Janet Reno’s decision to attack the compound, it is relevant to question the decision to make Reno attorney general. Clinton’s flaw, and the hubris of his presidency so far, has been his obsession with being the PC President, of making diversity the first priority, not competence. We have to ask ourselves how wise his choice of Reno was because we know, as a matter of admitted fact, that his overriding agenda in selecting an attorney general was that the position be filled by a woman--the best woman candidate, not the best person. As absolutely commendable as it is to give women parity with men in the Administration, it is irresponsible to sacrifice substance for form. Waco showed us all too chillingly how serious the implications of high-level government appointments are. The architecture of Clinton’s rainbow Cabinet is pretty, but how strong is the building?

Waco slapped us all in the face. Almost as many Americans died in the two assaults on the compound as in the Gulf War. The greatest sin of the whole siege is that there shouldn’t have been a siege in the first place. Despite the party line that the feds had to go in because of the weapons buildup, and the way they were shipped to the compound being a federal offense, the reality is that David Koresh made enough trips outside the compound that he could have easily been arrested, and the then-leaderless sect probably would have capitulated. At least that should have been tried. Instead, with camera crews in position to record the glory of U.S. law enforcement kicking some weirdo butt, the whole ill-conceived, tragic endeavor blew up in our face.

America wants Clinton to succeed, to transform his shiny rhetoric into actual accomplishments. This was supposed to be the Nike presidency, the Just-Do-It administration. It started gloriously with Clinton’s inauguration speech, which was followed by innumerable wonderful, political-spring-like images: Clinton comfortable and smiling in the Oval Office, Hillary leading the health-care revolution. Photo-ops and promising sound bites mounted daily, but Clinton was still starting. Task forces were formed and earnest, long meetings held, and lots of studying and debating on everything from gays in the military to Bosnia. But nothing was getting resolved. At the 100-day mark, the thunderously enthusiastic welcome that ushered Clinton onstage had subsided to a smattering of polite applause, and he still hadn’t begun the performance. Our rock ‘n’ roll President was still tuning his guitar.

Is this too harsh a criticism after only 100 days? Absolutely not, because Bill Clinton’s failings are the kind that look like they’re going to get worse the longer they’re left. This is a man who told us we’d have to pay more taxes, and we gave him a standing ovation, so the problem is not that he doesn’t have our support. Yet he keeps waffling on issues that were the cornerstones of his campaign, and fumbling foreign-policy crises, such as Bosnia, which his campaign critics predicted would be his fatal flaw. His economic-reform proposal is being picked to death by the special interests and will soon be toothless. If he, or someone, doesn’t stop the erosion, we’ll simply pay more taxes and the government will waste more money.

America wanted hope when it elected Bill Clinton as much as it wanted change. Maybe more. People didn’t necessarily all want change if it meant they would have less so that someone else could have some. But everyone wants a better America, and we bought Clinton’s pitch that that was possible. He made us believe. If he continues to fail to find at least the meaningful starting points to the solutions for America’s most serious problems, he will be swallowed into the quagmire of politics-as-usual. Then his prized ideal of diversity won’t stand for much. It didn’t in Waco.