Responding to the reported wave of arson against black churches in the South, President Clinton proclaimed in a radio address that "racial hostility is the driving force." The president exhorted: "I want to ask every citizen in America to say . . . we are not slipping back to those dark days."

OK, Mr. President, I'll say it. I'll say it because this supposed "epidemic of hatred" is a myth, probably a deliberate hoax. There is no good evidence of any increase in black church burnings. There is,...