The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington.

MR. MacNeil: And I'm Robert MacNeil in New York. After tonight's News Summary, a dialogue about political blame and responsibility for American racial and urban tensions. We'll hear from two Senators, Bill Bradley and John Danforth. Then David Gergen and Mark Shields analyze the week's politics. We have a report on the strains in Germany's mighty economy, and some closing thoughts from essayist Clarence Page about the events in Los Angeles. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: President Bush pledged today to work with Congress to revitalize the nation's inner cities. He said at the end of a two-day visit to Los Angeles he would re-emphasize his economic proposals for urban America. Mr. Bush said his approach was a radical break from the policies of the past. His comments came after meetings with police, troops and others who helped quell the violence last week. We have a report by Jeffrey Kaye of public station KCET-Los Angeles.

MR. KAYE: The President began his day at a hospital out of view of the press with a bedside visit to a wounded firefighter, Scott Miller. Miller's in serious condition after being shot in the cheek while driving to a blaze last Wednesday, the first night of the riots. Next, it was on to a fire station, where Bush thanked firefighters, paramedics, and highway patrol officers who assisted during the unrest. Later, the President went to the LA Colosseum, where he praised police, federal, and national guard troops, as well as soldiers from the army and marines.

PRES. BUSH: I salute all of you who serve in uniform of the military of the United States of America.

MR. KAYE: The President's last stop was to challenge a boys' and girls' club in South Central Los Angeles. Bush acknowledged that the anger that produced the LA riots stemmed from longstanding urban ills.

PRES. BUSH: We talked a week ago about the law and the pursuit of justice. And today I want to talk about what went wrong in LA, and the underlying causes of the root problems. It can all be debated, and it should be, but not to assign blame. Casting blame gets us absolutely nowhere. Honest talk and principled action can move us forward.

MR. KAYE: Bush reiterated his view that some federal social programs had failed and said that it was time for a radical change. He proposed a four point plan consisting of recommendations he has made previously including anti-drug efforts, tax breaks for developing inner city businesses, and welfare reform. But the line that drew the loudest response was the critique of the media.

PRES. BUSH: The media needs to show from time to time what's working, needs to cover what is working.

MR. KAYE: The President devoted much of his 30-minute speech to the importance of family values and said that a moral sense of right and wrong must guide us all.

MR. LEHRER: Democratic Presidential front-runner Bill Clinton aid today the President's remarks sounded good and were similar to what he, Clinton, had been saying for years. But in an interview with CNN, Clinton said Mr. Bush's comments were inconsistent with his record as President. Clinton said, "I hope this time we will see some real action." Robin.

MR. MacNeil: The nation's unemployment rate fell .1 point to 7.2 percent in April. It was thefirst to climb in nine months. The Labor Department said businesses added 126,000 jobs to bring the rate down from a six and a half year high in February and March. Service industries accounted for most of the new jobs, particularly department stores and hospitals.

MR. LEHRER: The Yugoslav army was purged today of virtually all of its former Communist leaders. It follows sharp international criticism of Yugoslavia for waging war in the former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina. We have a report on the fighting there by Terry Lloyd of Independent Television News. There were some technical difficulties when the report was filed from Bosnia.

TERRY LLOYD, ITN: The latest night fight started after a day of rumors. The Serbs claimed their stronghold on the outskirts of the city was about to be attacked. The Bosnians said tanks were ready to roll into the old town. Eventually all sides opened fire to spark off a battle which went on solidly for three hours. Peace talks are due to resume in a few hours' time, but as the U.N. Special Envoy Mike Golding warned, some people don't want peace. Tonight they're fiercely underlining that message. By comparison, however, war weary peace negotiators said the cease-fire had not officially been broken. But the scale now used to gauge this war is little comfort to the citizens of Sarajevo, whose homes and families have been torn apart. Many are unable to tell their stories, trapped in their villages by enemy blockades. We have been prevented from reaching the Muslim village behind me, which took the brunt of the fighting. As one Serbian soldier said, "I have been given orders not to allow reporters to go there." The historic old town escaped much of the night's bombardment, but as the peace talks reconvened, the people came out to carry on their massive clearing up task.

MR. LEHRER: There was fighting reported today between the former Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Armenian forces launched a major offensive on the last Azare stronghold in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Both sides reported heavy casualties. More than 1500 people have died in four years of fighting over control of that region. The capital of the former Soviet republic of Tadjikistan was under the control of Muslim opposition groups today. Thousands gathered for prayers and to mourn the dead killed in a week of bloody, anti-government clashes. At least 14 people died in the fighting which yesterday succeeded in ousting the country's former Communist president.

MR. MacNeil: And that's our summary of the news today. Now, it's on to political responsibility for race and urban decay, Gergen & Shields, Germany's economy, and a Clarence Page essay. FOCUS - THE BLAME GAME

MR. LEHRER: Political responsibility and blame for the underlying causes of the Los Angeles story is our lead focus tonight. A dialogue between Senators Bradley and Danforth and the analysis of Gergen & Shields follow a brief chronological setup by Kwame Holman.

MR. HOLMAN: Today after two days of viewing the Los Angeles damage firsthand, the President's tone was conciliatory.

PRES. BUSH: I want to talk about what went wrong in LA, and the underlying causes of -- the root problems. It can all be debated and it should be but not to assign blame. Casting blame gets us absolutely nowhere. Honest talk and principled action can move us forward.

MR. HOLMAN: The blame laying began a week ago on the second day of the rioting in Los Angeles. The blame layer was Democratic Presidential Candidate Bill Clinton. Clinton said that more than a decade of Republican leadership had brought too much division, too little harmony, too little effort to bring people together across racial lines. In response, administration spokesmen appearing on Sunday talk shows put the blame on liberal Democratic policies of the past.

WILLIAM BARR, Attorney General: [This Week with David Brinkley] I think what we're seeing in the inner city communities are essentially the grim harvest of the great society.

DAVID BRINKLEY: How's that?

WILLIAM BARR: Because we are seeing the breakdown of the family structure, largely contributed to by welfare policies. We now have a situation in the inner cities where 64 percent of the children are illegitimate and it's a very small wonder that we have trouble instilling values in educating children when they had their home life so disrupted.

MR. KAYE: That theme continued Monday. Presidential Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said, "We believe that many of the root problems that have resulted in inner city difficulties were started in the '60s and '70s. Outraged Democrats blasted the Republicans for attacking Lyndon Johnson's great society programs.

SEN. PATRICK MOYNIHAN, [D] New York: The Attorney General of the United States made one of the most depraved statements in public life that I have ever heard from an American official. It was a lie. The Attorney General lied to you, and then just two days ago, the President's spokesman repeated the lie.

REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT, Majority Leader: [May 5] The President who governs by running negative campaigns is now running against the past. Yesterday it was Willie Horton. Today the campaign is against Jack, Bobby, Lyndon and Martin. President Bush must stop tearing us apart and start figuring out how to make room at the table for everyone to share in America's bounty.

MR. HOLMAN: On Wednesday, President Bush made his first public comments on the partisan fingerpointing. He said he didn't want to play what he called the blame game, but he still insisted that Democratic programs of the '60s indeed had failed.

PRES. BUSH: I don't want to assign blame, I don't, and if I said a year ago that these programs weren't working, perhaps I have been vindicated. But there is no point in going into that. Nobody in the United States political system can certify today that every program we've had has worked just perfectly. It hasn't.

MR. HOLMAN: Democratic leaders in Congress again responded immediately.

SEN. GEORGE MITCHELL, Majority Leader: [May 6] Earlier today the President said, "This is no time to play the blame game." Yet, as we all know, that is precisely what the President's spokesman has done. It is one more example of an administration that says one thing and does another.

REP. TOM FOLEY, Speaker of the House: There hasn't been a single program identified in this general sweeping criticism of the legislation of the '60s, Medicare, Aid to Education, WIC, the Food Stamp Program, Head Start, College Alone Programs, I mean, you can go through a long list that has made a very positive contribution to the fairness and justice of our society.

MR. HOLMAN: Finally, yesterday at a prayer service in Los Angeles, it was the President who began to back away from the sharp rhetoric of the political blame game.

MR. MacNeil: Now, to two Senators who've raised the issue of race and the growing racial divide in this country, even as their respective parties remain silent. I spoke with New Jersey Democrat Bill Bradley and John Danforth, Republican of Missouri, from Capitol Hill this afternoon. Sen. Bradley, Sen. Danforth, welcome. Sen. Bradley, after a week of the blame game, how would you say that American political leadership has responded to the Los Angeles crisis?

SEN. BRADLEY: Well, Robin, I think we need to talk less about the politics of the problem and more about the problem. The fact is that our cities are in a great state of deterioration. There is an absence of meaning in an increasingly larger number of people's lives. The family structure is in danger. We need to find common ground that will change circumstances and empower people living in those cities. The fact of the matter is that slavery was our original sin and race remains our unresolved dilemma. We need some more candor and less politics.

MR. MacNeil: Do you think that blaming what happened in Los Angeles on the great society programs of your party is talking about the politics and not about the problem?

SEN. BRADLEY: I certainly do. I find it difficult to believe that Head Start caused the riots in Los Angeles. But let's focus on the substance. And the substance is that we have to empower people. And I think really what we need is to get beyond the politics of greed or the politics of dependence to a new Democratic movement that I call "conversion," whose morality is based upon each of us asking ourselves what we owe another person simply because that person is a human being and whose optimism is fueled by the view that each of us has a potential as a human being and we're all going to advance together or each of us is going to be diminished.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Danforth, as a Republican, how did you feel having the policies of your President and previous Republican Presidents blamed for this situation?

SEN. DANFORTH: I absolutely agree with everything that Sen. Bradley has just said. I think that fingerpointing accomplishes absolutely nothing. We have a common problem in this country and I believe that we have a national consensus about what that problem is. The challenge for those of us in public life is to appeal to that consensus and not try to point the finger at somebody else. The consensus is that the problem that we have is one of race and that we have to address that problem and that we have to solve that problem. And it can be solved. It is very hard but it can be solved. The solution entails jobs. It entails education and it entails, as Sen. Bradley has just pointed out, the basic value system in America. And we have to appeal to that value system and we have to figure out what has gone wrong in that value system and we have to fix it.

MR. MacNeil: Do you think there's a consensus, Sen. Bradley, on what the problem is?

SEN. BRADLEY: I think there's a consensus if you take a look at the reality that's out there. I mean, one of the striking things to me about last week is that I think there were in the neighborhood of forty-five to forty-six murders. There were more deaths, but I think that was the number of murders. That's a little more than double the number of murders that occurred every week of last year in Los Angeles. Frankly, what I'd like to see us do is to take the same indignation that we felt about the verdict and the injustice of the verdict, the same indignation we felt about the mob violence, which is no answer to injustice, and take that energy and direct it into a response to this problem that's going to solve it. I think that is what ultimately is the challenge for people in public life. It's not only the challenge of politicians, however, because I really don't think that the answer to this is going to come from a charismatic leader. I think you're going to have to have leaders of awareness in communities all across this country. They're the people who need to be empowered because ultimately that's where the solution's going to lie. It's going to take more resources, more resources from the federal government.

MR. MacNeil: Well, are you both saying -- start with you, Sen. Bradley -- that there is a consensus in the country, but that there isn't a political consensus? Is that what you mean?

SEN. BRADLEY: The issue is so fraught with the residue of 25 years of politics not serving the issue well, I mean, I personally believe for 25 years our politics has abandoned the issue of race in America. I mean, I think Republicans from time to time have used race to divide people, to get votes. I think Democrats have covered self-destructive behavior on the parts of part of our minority population in a cloak of self-denial and silence. And the result is we haven't moved ahead. We haven't moved ahead to eliminate the conditions.

MR. MacNeil: Would you agree with that, Sen. Danforth, there may be a consensus among some people out there, but that among -- between the political parties there isn't?

SEN. DANFORTH: Well, I think that what we're seeing now is more and more Democrats and Republicans, especially in the Senate talking, to each other about what we're going to do next, not putting the blame, not relating the past, but looking to what we intend to do next. I think that more important than dealing with the partisan issue -- and I think we're going to do that -- we're going to put that aside -- but more difficult than that is to put aside some of the ideological baggage that we carry with us. If it is true that the problem of black America is a special problem in the United States, then we have to address that issue and that means that some dearly loved ideological positions we've taken in the past have to be re-examined.

MR. MacNeil: Name the dearly loved ideological positions.

SEN. DANFORTH: For example, that affirmative action is something that is wrong, something to be avoided. Clearly, if there is a problem in black America, that has to be specifically addressed. Clearly, the comment that some would make that any time we talk about values and any time we talk about family structure, respect for law, we are somehow singling out the blacks for criticism.

MR. MacNeil: The so-called "code words."

SEN. DANFORTH: Yeah. What we're going to have to do is to talk realistically, liberals and conservatives, about a common problem, and stop using the code words and recognize that some of the ideological baggage has to be set aside.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Bradley, can the system cure itself of that kind of dependency on the sort of drug of using these issues, because that's what gets people elected, or prevents them from being defeated, isn't it?

SEN. BRADLEY: That's probably right. That's why they've been used so much in the last 25 years, but that also speaks to an absence of moral leadership over that period of time.

SEN. DANFORTH: Can I just point out in that regard, yes, it has been used, and it's been used in my party. It's been used by people who have claimed that they're in my party, for example, David Duke, for example, Pat Buchanan, but, on the other hand, they didn't do very well. The civil rights legislation that we passed in 1991 was a Republican initiative.

MR. MacNeil: But almost over the dead body of your President.

SEN. DANFORTH: Well, my view is it got caught up in the legal battle. I mean, a lot of lawyers were picking over that one, but I think the fact of the matter is that it was a Republican initiative, that we are the party of Lincoln, and that we have to act as the party of Lincoln. So, yes, there are people who have played the race card. There's no doubt about it. There are people who have believed that that is a political advantage, but they have not done very well in elections. And I don't think they will do very well. And I think we are in a position now where we can be moving toward a common approach. And it has to be, it must be bipartisan.

MR. MacNeil: Do you --

SEN. DANFORTH: It absolutely has to be one where we're not one upping each other on the basis of party politics.

SEN. BRADLEY: Robin, if I could, I think it takes the best of the liberal agenda and there are many good things in that agenda, and the best of the conservative agenda, and there are things that are good in the conservative agenda, and bring those together into an American agenda. And frankly, if you look back at the Kerner Commission Report, there's also a chapter in there about the media. And I think that we have to look at how the media has treated these issues as well. I mean, for example, I would love to have several stories in the media about African American families that are every morning living amidst all the violence and trying to send their children through war zones to school and have to deal with drug dealers every day in order to just get an education. I'd like to see some reporting of the heroic efforts on the part of single mothers who are raising children against great odds. I'd like to see a clear explanation of the violence and the causes of the violence and also a clear explanation of the numbers in violence. And I think if we began to broaden this debate so it's not just one politician and another politician, one party, another party, but so that we see that this is an American problem and until we come to grips with it, we're frankly not going to be able to lead the world by the example of a pluralistic democracy.

SEN. DANFORTH: Can I say that the point that was just made with respect to the media is absolutely right. If what we are talking about is the basic value system of this country, not just with black Americans but with all Americans, if the problem is the value system, then I really believe that a lot of the problem and a lot of the solution has to do with the medium of television and with the movies. What people see when they turn on the TV is violence. What they see is sex. What they see is total disrespect for family and for authority and what they see is stereotypes. And this is, in my opinion, a very large part of the problem. The medium of television right now is disgusting. So are many of the movies that people see. And I think that one way to start on this problem is to have a summit meeting perhaps called by the President which brings together people who are leaders of broadcast, the broadcast networks, people who are leaders of cable television, of the motion picture industry, and ask them what responsibility they have for this country, other than squeezing every last dime they can out of it.

MR. MacNeil: You would --

SEN. BRADLEY: I might add, Robin, that corporate America also has a responsibility to answer for the number of minorities that are in positions of responsibility. I mean, if we're going to move forward, we have to understand where we are as a nation. I mean, it's the children of white America as much as it is the children of non-white America that's at stake here because by the year 2000 only 57 percent of the people who enter thework force are going to be native born whites. And that means the future of the children of white Americans will depend increasingly on the talents of non- white Americans. It is enlightened self-interest to move decisively on this issue.

MR. MacNeil: Well, let me --

SEN. BRADLEY: It is also moral leadership on an international scale. Look at the reporting we've had in the last couple of days about the events in Los Angeles, and what that implies for America's moral leadership in the world. I think that we have to see that this issue goes to the very core of who we are as a country. And if we're not prepared to deal with it candidly and honestly and with a little bit longer view than tomorrow, then it is going to spell great danger for our country.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Danforth, if I may bring it back to your profession, your and Sen. Bradley's, you've recently been very critical of the system in which -- which keeps putting off all unpleasant subjects because there's always another election ar/%qR the corner. Now, since that's what keeps people in their jobs, how are the idealistic things that you and Sen. Bradley are saying going to get translated into action in your own Senate? For instance, there's a consensus among the American people, the opinion polls say, and among leaders, law enforcement agents and judges and everything else, about gun control. It's one of the issues that's come up against -- come up again in Los Angeles. And yet the Congress has consistently refused to go along with very stringent gun control, because very Congressman, almost every Congressman, is really worried about the backlash on the NRA and so on.

SEN. DANFORTH: I think that what we have to do is to look at the format of political discussion, particularly in political campaigns. Right now, political campaigns are dominated by the 20 second sound bite, the 30 second commercial. Even in debates it usually is about three minutes to address a subject. And what we have to do is to provide forums for discussing subjects in say a half an hour, an hour at a time. That doesn't mean we're going to do away with a 30 second commercial. There's no way to do away with them. But there has to be some leaven in the lump. And the way to provide that I think is for the medium of television in particular to provide blocks of time so that people in public life can get into one subject, not shift all over the map, but get into one subject and really deal with it in an exhaustive fashion.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Bradley, what's your comment on what Sen. Danforth has recently complained about, that every really unpleasant reality keeps getting pushed off election after election because it's just too scary to deal with, whether it's the budget deficit or the race issue? The race issue hardly surfaced and urban decay hardly surfaced in the Presidential campaign before this week.

SEN. BRADLEY: Robin, this is I think the third Presidential election where I have already begun to hear the cry that we'll deal with the budget deficit after the election. I think that it would be very important for all candidates to lay out specifically how they would propose to eliminate the budget deficit prior to the middle of October, thereby if they succeed, they have a mandate for change and at least the American people then know what's in store and can make their judgment supportingly. This is more at stake than simply an election. I think that a lot of people who are in politics have to come to the realization that there's something more important than the next election. And what is important is the future of this country, which is endangered unless we deal with the basic issues that confront our society, whether it is race, whether it is urban decay, whether it is the environment, or whether it is the budget deficit.

MR. MacNeil: Do you see evidence, Sen. Danforth -- do you see any evidence in this election so far that the American people are going to respond positively to candidates who really address tough issues honestly, rather than candidates who tell that it's whatever it is, morning in America, or not to single that one out, but everything's very nice?

SEN. DANFORTH: Yes, I think that there are some good signs. I think one good sign was that Sen. Tsongas did so well in his campaign for so long. He fell by the wayside eventually, but he was a person who was willing to talk about hard questions. He was willing to talk about hard questions with some specificity and at some length. I think that's good. I have found that with my constituents. I think there is a thirst for people who lay it on the line, people who tell the truth.

MR. MacNeil: So why are people like Sen. Rudman saying, to hell with it, it's not a game worth playing anymore, people don't want to hear the truth, I can't address the real issues, I can't make way on issues like the budget deficit?

SEN. DANFORTH: Well, Sen. Rudman and I agree about a lot of things, but I think I'm more of an optimist than he is. The American people will make the right decision if they are given the right things to deal with, to think about. If all they're given is the sound bite, that is, that is why we become so vulcanized as a country, everybody's interests are appealed to. But the big issues, it is possible to appeal to the best instincts of the American people on the big issues, if we can talk about them in enough length. The big issue of the budget deficit, yes, we're going to have differences of opinion on exactly how to handle it. But at least we're going to clean up the underbrush of thinking that all you have to do is deal with is waste, fraud and abuse. And the same is true with the race issue. It is possible for somebody like a David Duke to play the race card, but the more we talk about it, the more we flush out the David Dukes of the world and the more we build the basic consensus that's necessary in order to move forward.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Bradley, do the political leaders who are around right now know the tough answers, or do they only know the political answers?

SEN. BRADLEY: I think that part of each. I think that some answers are not going to come out of the brains and minds of politicians alone. They're going to come from the American people. They're going to come with common sense. In other cases, the answers are pretty clear. On the budget deficit, the answers are fairly clear. You're either going to have to cut spending or increase revenues, or find some magic formula for overall growth. It's just enumerating those things that is the challenge. On other issues related to race in America, this is a problem of the heart, it's a problem of the proper resources. It's a problem of commitment. It's a problem for each American to ask himself or herself the basic question. When was the last time that you talked about race with someone of a different race? And if the answer is never, then you understand that it will not come from Washington. It's got to come from each person's own individual personal experience in coming to terms with this basic issue.

MR. MacNeil: That is the end of our time. Sen. Bradley and Sen. Danforth, appreciate you joiningus. FOCUS - '92 - GERGEN & SHIELDS

MR. LEHRER: And that brings us to Gergen & Shields, our regular political analysis team of David Gergen, editor at large of U.S. News & World Report, and syndicated columnist Mark Shields. David, people could say listening to that, hey, hey, let's have a Bradley/Danforth or Danforth/Bradley ticket. But the question is: Do those two Senators and the sentiments that they just expressed, to they represent the mainstream thinking within their own respective parties right now?

MR. GERGEN: I can't say that they represent the broad spectrum of thinking within the parties. I think they're very special people, Jim. They've become --

MR. LEHRER: I don't mean ideologically even.

MR. GERGEN: No. I think each one has become the conscience of his own party on issues relating to race and to class. And they have become leaders within the party. They have a hard time bringing their entire party with them. Sen. Danforth had to labor extremely hard, for example, to bring along his own President on the affirmative action to build a civil rights bill this year which the President describes as a quota bill. Sen. Bradley, to his credit, as Mark has noted on the previous program, spoke about problems within the inner cities long before the riots in Los Angeles. So they are the conscience of their parties, but I'm not at all clear they represent the mainstream thinking.

MR. LEHRER: Mark, what do you think?

MR. SHIELDS: I think, Jim, everyone rightly deploys the tragedy of the riots in Los Angeles, the death, the looting, the arson. But it took that to get the attention of America. It took that to get the attention of the administration. These guys don't represent - - I mean, Bill Bradley was speaking alone. He did get some press attention. He did get some attention on some of the more thoughtful shows, but he really was not speaking for the multitudes or to the multitudes on this issue. David's right, that Jack Danforth was a lonely crusader carrying on the mantle of Jack Javitz and Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt on the Republican side. He was not inundated with GOP support in that fight. But I think it's front and center now and both parties are going to have to deal with it. And I guess I'm grateful as a citizen that these are two of the guys who have been on the subject.

MR. LEHRER: Everybody says, all right, the blame game is over. But the fact is the blame game, whether they play it or not, is never quite over in the minds of voters. At this stage of the game, who won it, do you think, or who's ahead?

MR. GERGEN: In the blame game?

MR. LEHRER: The blame game. I'm not talking about -- I'm moving into the overall thing.

MR. GERGEN: I would say all the politicians lost. You know, the sense that I have around the country that people feel that politicians are almost bankrolled, at least they were earlier this week, in their responses, not only the local politicians. The mayor of Los Angeles, Tom Bradley, has come in for a lot of criticism, of course, the police chief, Daryl Gates, has as well. But you look at the responses, the early responses of Presidential candidates not on the question of law and order, they all rallied to the law and order, not on the question of the Rodney King verdict, they all rallied on that, but on the fundamental question of dealing with the underlying conditions, getting to what Jack Kemp calls the root cause, hopelessness, you know, in the first few days, you know, Bush ducked, Clinton danced, and Perot disappeared. You know, these fellahs were not there when it counted. Now, at the end of the week, to their credit, they're starting to come around. And I think you have to say the President's speech today in Los Angeles was a major step forward. I think the President deserves credit for what he said there today.

MR. LEHRER: Mark.

MR. SHIELDS: I thought we saw first the bad George Bush followed by the good George Bush, followed by the no George Bush, and then kind of the good/bad, good George Bush. I mean, well, the verdict comes down, he says the courts worked, everybody accept it. Everybody obviously didn't accept it. I mean, 86 percent of the people thought it was a bad verdict in the Rodney King case. Then Friday night I thought he made a good speech. He revealed his own feelings about it. Monday, he's got Marlin Fitzwater doing a bad imitation of Roger Ailes, you know, attacking Lyndon Johnson. As Dave Bonior, the House Democratic Whip, put it, you know, first they attacked Jimmy Carter, they blamed everything on Jimmy Carter. Now they're blaming it on Lyndon Johnson. What's next, Grover Cleveland? I mean, you know, that was the blame game in spade. And it's back out to Los Angeles. It's kind of the good/bad, and David's right, today he was better. He is better when he's before real people. What brings out the worst in George Bush are those staged Republican Party groups where, you know, for some reason he has to be -- overcompensate because he isn't Ronald Reagan or whatever. But, I mean, I think the country is ready for no more arguing about the past. I think David is right about Bill Clinton, who has had a message of racial harmony in this campaign. He gave the same speech to a black Detroit audience during the Michigan primary that he gave to white Reagan Democrats in Macomb County. And that failed him in this situation. That was the perfect time for making exactly the same speech. Instead, what he did was he went programmatic on us. He started talking about the terms, what were the terms he used -- refundable earned income credit -- massive infrastructure -- voter registration. I mean, those don't mean anything to people. Programs are not values and I think that's where it failed Clinton.

MR. GERGEN: I think, Jim, in the early part of the week, when the first few days after the riots came, we had all the politicians running for President, who essentially had given up appealing for black vote, particularly black inner city votes, and are now running a whole campaign trying to get suburban white votes. That's the motherload of votes this year. More than half the voters for the first time in our history are going to be voting in the suburbs. And so they were caught in this dilemma that if you now appeal to the inner city, that you're going to somehow lose the base vote that you want out there in the suburbs. And I think as a result of that, all of them are extraordinarily timid. They were all very cautious.

MR. LEHRER: Who were they afraid of?

MR. GERGEN: I think they're afraid of a white backlash.

MR. LEHRER: They were afraid of losing votes. So they were the manifestation of what Danforth and Bradley were talking about.

MR. GERGEN: Absolutely. What Bill Bradley said about playing with the politics of the problem instead of the problem was absolutely right in the first few days. It shifted down. I think most politicians right now were ashamed of what happened the first few days.

MR. SHIELDS: And George Bush.

MR. LEHRER: Everybody.

MR. SHIELDS: What George Bush -- innocence by association. He had Jack Kemp on one side of him and Lou Sullivan, the black secretary of HHSon the other. I mean, Jack Kemp couldn't get arrested in this administration. He couldn't even get his phone calls answered at the White House, but because of what happened in Los Angeles, they're not going to let -- I mean, he's all over Jack Kemp like a cheap suit at this point. You can't have a photo op without Jack Kemp being with George Bush. Why? Because Jack Kemp has ideas, because Jack Kemp has been talking about this problem just like Bill Bradley. It's interesting to me that the two leaders really of both parties, Jack Kemp and Bill Bradley, are the only two that I know, leaders of either party, as adults were in occupations, professional sports, of football and basketball --

MR. LEHRER: Isn't that interesting --

MR. SHIELDS: -- where they had blacks as team mates, as equals and as friends, and they saw urban life up close.

MR. LEHRER: A good point, that's a very good point. How do you explain this Kemp thing? That is fascinating, that he really -- I won't repeat all of Mark's great lines -- but suddenly Jack Kemp is everywhere, including on this program this last week. He's been on everybody's program. Is the only guy in the Republican Party who had some ideas on these kind of urban issues?

MR. GERGEN: No. I think people like Jack Danforth have got a lot of good ideas, but the fact is that Jack Kemp has the only ideas in Washington right now that I think are going to rally people. The Democrats, you know, want to throw a lot more money, but they don't necessarily have a lot of new ideas. Kemp, at least, has some originality. And I think he's an irrepressible person. The fact is he was held out of the inner circle for a long, long time. He was excluded from the State of the Union this past year and the planning for the State of the Union. When the President came to give his speech in March, the "Five Pillars Speech," as it's been come to call, you know, what he wants to do in the second term, this was in late March, not one mention in that speech about dealing with problems of poverty or the poor or the underclass or blacks or Hispanics who are in trouble. This is a late conversion and Jack Kemp, he deserves a lot of credit. You know, he was sitting there, when he was the guy on the bench and they brought him out to play.

MR. LEHRER: Mark, what about Ross Perot? You would think that with all of this -- everybody being down on the political leadership and all of that sort of thing -- the country's in turmoil and what happened to Ross Perot?

MR. SHIELDS: Ross Perot was -- I mean his reflexes failed him. I mean, it took him, as far as I can see, a full forty-eight to seventy-two hours before he had a statement on it. And then it was more symbolic. It was sort of I'll go to Los Angeles and then all the rest, and I think he, for whatever reason, he certainly didn't rise to the challenge on this one. On the question of Kemp and Bradley, I think the other thing that's interesting is that neither one of them is arguing about the past. That's what all these guys are doing this week, arguing about the past. What was it, the vaccination program in the great society that really caused all this trouble? Is that what it was? You know, just what one of the great society programs was the undoing, Head Start I guess maybe or prenatal care? But I mean the reality is instead of arguing about that, they're both talking about this is where we are, this is what we're going to do. I think that is where the country is. I think the country right now objects and resents and finds deplorable anybody who's trying to make cheap political points on this, either side.

MR. GERGEN: I think that's right. And so where I think we are tonight, Kravchuk, is that there is a gathering consensus in Washington at least that something must be done, and I do think the Congress will work with the President, probably at past portions of the President's program. I think we're likely to get an enterprise zone program now, the Kemp program, suddenly the Bush program.

MR. SHIELDS: That's right.

MR. GERGEN: I think we're likely to get something done on welfare reform. I would think that on the housing, condominiums or public housing projects, Jack Kemp has been pushing for ownership -- I think will likely get something done there. There may be more dollars, but there are two questions that I think are still out there tonight. And it's way too early to celebrate the conversion that's going on among politicians. One is: Will the effort be large enough? Will it be strong enough? And I think there's considerable question about that. One has to be very skeptical about that. But the other question is: Will it be a sustained effort, or is this simply going to be a couple of good days' headlines and then we'll go on with business as usual? Will we get back to the other five pillars? And I think that that's -- you know, this country tried to make a commitment back in the late '60s and we all went off the track with that. We saw that. We remember that. And we know how much it takes. It takes a huge sustained effort to make a change.

MR. LEHRER: But Danforth and Bradley are both saying -- and other people are saying, we're not just talking about programs, federal programs. It goes beyond that. And Bradley kept saying it's moral leadership. We ought to talk about the morality in this country as much as anything else. Who's going to do that, Mark?

MR. SHIELDS: Well, you know, I think the very fact that we're talking about it, I mean, the very fact that we're addressing it for the first time in really -- Bill Bradley deserves a lot of credit because Democrats have engaged in a sort of conspiracy of silence. We don't want to talk about what he calls the self- destructive behavior of people in American cities. And I mean, the fact that in Washington, D.C., four times as many black males were arrested in 1989 as graduated from high school, and that this is really an enormous, enormous problem, when two out three babies being born are being born into single mother homes without a father, without a presence.

MR. LEHRER: David, this is an election year. We're about to elect a new President of the United States. Everybody's saying, wait we've got to get politics out of this, and yet, shouldn't this be at the core of the Presidential debate from now till November as to what we're going to do about the state of our country and all these various areas we've been talking about?

MR. GERGEN: Well, absolutely, and what one hopes is that this will bring a greater moral passion than we've seen in the past. And I think that's still missing in our politicians today, Presidential politicians. Bush, Clinton, and Perot, none of them has yet spoken out with the kind of fervor, with the kind of, I think what inspired us about some of the leadership in the '60s, you know, you could agree, disagree, strongly with Bobby Kennedy, but, boy, you knew he believed in it and he found injustice out there and he wanted to change it. And you don't sense that now. You sense a timidness still on the part of all three of these men.

MR. LEHRER: Thank you, you two men, and we'll see you next week. FOCUS - ECONOMIC DIVIDE

MR. MacNeil: Next tonight, a bitter strike that has divided a united Germany. For the past 11 days, the country's been suffering its worst labor conflicts since the end of World War II. Hundreds of thousands of public service employees walked off their jobs in a pay dispute with the government of Helmut Kohl. The strike shut down much of the country's public transit, air service, and garbage collection. Late yesterday, negotiators reached an agreement and today some basic services resumed. But the government said it was forced into the accord and warned it could set the stage for more labor unrest throughout the nation. Earlier this week, before the strike was settled, Julian O'Halloran of the BBC's Newsnight Program filed this report on the issues behind it.

MR. O'HALLORAN: We want more money and we need more money. That is the uncomplicated message coming from Germany's public service workers. Registering for strike pay, catering staff at Cologne University are among hundreds of thousands of Germans who have almost gleefully seized the chance to strike in the last 10 days. It's 18 years since the last public service strike. Betty Wisniewski, a widow, takes home about 140 pounds a week from her job in the university kitchen. She shares a two-room flat with her sister, who's a pensioner. To Betty, the wage offer of 4.8 percent, equivalent to inflation, combined with higher taxes to pay for German reunification, added up to an effective pay cut. She has never been on strike before, but this time she felt she had no choice.

BETTY WISNIEWSKI, Canteen Worker: The rent keeps going up, the street cars. Everything you use is going up, but our wages stayed the same. So that's what we're striking for, to get the same amount of money so we're not losing.

MR. O'HALLORAN: Behind the action which brought the students' canteens to a standstill is a growing belief by the lower paid that they are being asked to shoulder an unfair share of the burden of supporting Eastern Germany.

BETTY WISNIEWSKI: We pay so much per month -- in my case it's almost 20 marks a month for the East -- used to be East German and --

MR. O'HALLORAN: You're paying about seven pounds English money in extra tax per month?

BETTY WISNIEWSKI: Per month.

MR. O'HALLORAN: To pay for reunification?

BETTY WISNIEWSKI: Exactly. I feel for them. They have 45 years - - they have been standing still. It is not our fault.

MR. O'HALLORAN: The canteen staff joined a picket line set up by administrators at a nearby unemployment center. The Public Service Union has 2.3 million members, including dustmen and public transport crews. Their pay deal sets the base line for the whole annual wage round. There's also a smell of revenge in the air, revenge against the Kohl government, which pledged two years ago that rebuilding the East would mean no new taxes.

UWE FREITAG, Driver: [Speaking through Interpreter] They said that no one would be worse off, that everyone would be better off. Yet, the exact opposite has happened. We were lied to, we were cheated, and German employees cannot tolerate this. We are being forced to make all the sacrifices, while it remains in the sidelines and reaps the profits.

DR. FRITZ HEINZ HINNELREICH, German Employers Federation: [Speaking through Interpreter] During the 1980s we admitted we made some big profits. But we used these profits to create jobs on a scale that we haven't achieved for a long time, about 1.3 million jobs in total. That's why I stick to my view that you can't cheat the economy and you have to make your choice. Either you have moderate wage increases, or you get inflation and joblessness.

MR. O'HALLORAN: It was Chancellor Kohl's bad luck that at the precise moment his coalition government needed to look most united against the wage demands. It almost fell apart. The resignation of Kohl as foreign minister, Herr Genscher, started a game of musical chairs in which the hapless Irmgard Schwaetzer, chosen by her party leadership to take his place, found the job snatched from her and given to Klaus Kinkel. It was all most disorderly and un-German. Worse, it gave the impression that the man running Europe's most powerful economy had lost control of his government. But it's the spreading strikes which are of immediate concern to Germany's trading partners. Frankfurt Airport, where most foreign business people get their first impressions of Germany, was today at a total standstill. This, together with rubbish on the streets, and the political turmoil, is causing nervousness in Germany's financial capital.

KARSTEN VOIGHT, Social Democratic Party: The real effect of this crisis can come from the simple facts that I coming from Frankfurt are contacted by the business community and they ask me how we as Social Democrats can contribute to the stability of the country.

MR. O'HALLORAN: The car industry has already suffered its first short warning strikes. The BMW plant in Munich was one of those where work stopped for an hour last week and 30,000 more engineering workers in Bavaria were called out for a short time this morning. They and men on the car production lines are demanding 9.5 percent. The employers have offered just 3.3. The personality of the Public Service Workers' Leader, Monica Wolf Matist, may be critical in determining how far the government will have to depart from its pay targets. By appearing on the right picket line at the right time, she successfully projected herself as the leader of the lower paid, without so far becoming a target of abuse in the popular press. I asked her how long her union was prepared to keep the rubbish piling up.

MONICA WOLF MATIST: My intention is to wait and see, that is, enough to fight inflation, and to give our people a fair share of income and everyone else.

MR. MacNeil: The settlement the union agreed to last night calls for a 5.4 percent wage increase, virtually the same figure rejected by the Kohl government two weeks ago. German airports have now reopened and sanitation crews have begun cleaning up the mountains of garbage that accumulated during the strike. But even as the public service workers returned to work, thousands of metal workers staged a work stoppage today to emphasize their demand for a 9.5 percent raise. ESSAY - OUT OF THE ASHES

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, essayist Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune has some thoughts about the events in Los Angeles.

MR. PAGE: Say what you will about riots. They have a remarkable way of getting attention. They get the attention of Presidents who suddenly put the rest of the world aside to deal with long festering problems back home. They get the attention of Presidential candidates, who have to stop wooing suburban, middle- class voters for awhile and get back into town, into the inner city. Riots get media attention too. They give television news lots of frames to shoot and commentators, like me, plenty to wring our hands about. How sad, we say, how terribly sad that things had to come to this, how sad. Then to present an angry counterpoint, we bring on the angry spokes people. We bring on a militant black spokesperson. Take Al Sharpton, please,he can tell you about how terrible white people are for victimizing blacks. Or we could bring on a militant white conservative. Take Pat Buchanan, please. He can tell you all about how terrible black people are for victimizing whites. Sometimes television offers a surprise, a pleasant, poignant surprise like this. In a nervous stammering voice, Rodney King, a black motorist whose police beating sparked the riot, called for calm amid the chaos.

RODNEY KING: I just want to say, you know, can we, can we all get along? Can we get along? Can we stop making it, making it horrible for, for the older people and the kids?

MR. PAGE: And he made more sense than all of television's mighty, heavyweight pundits combined. Television tends to cast the great debates of our time and alternatives of either/or, all or nothing. But most of us lie somewhere in-between the extremes, in-between the Sharptons and the Buchanans, closer perhaps to Rodney King, wondering and praying for the answer to a simple question. After all the fighting and victimizing we've done to each other, can we get along? It's the same question we asked in the '60s. When television brought pictures into every home with peaceful civil rights demonstrators getting beaten, the nation reacted with support for black people, for civil rights reforms, and programs to fight poverty. But later in the '60s, when television brought pictures of black rioters into every home, white America reacted with revulsion, anger, and dismay. Many fled to the suburbs and voted for Richard Nixon, the law and order ticket that promised to fight crime in the streets. What will the choice be this time? The brutality of the King video pummeled something into the public mind. It snapped us awake to a new awareness of what black Americans have been saying all along, that the thin blue line of police power that should be protecting us all sometimes runs wild against blacks and the subsequent "not guilty" verdict showed how much leeway a white public, fearful of black crime, gives to the police, even when one of their own agrees their behavior was out of control. But then came the riots and the television sight of blacks ruthlessly beating innocent whites. Suddenly America was faced with what sociologist Andrew Hacker calls "the great white American nightmare," black revenge, blacks doing to whites the very worst of what whites historically did to blacks. Out of this horror came the simple plea of Rodney King, letting us know that white Americans aren't the only ones who should feel upset.

RODNEY KING: Please, we can get along here. We all can get along. We just got to -- you know -- I mean, we're all stuck here for awhile, you know, let's, let's try to work it out.

MR. PAGE: Yes, we are all stuck here for awhile. Can we get along, or will we, America's middle class, return to fortress suburbia and lock our doors? We don't have many escape routes left. As the ashes cool, the final image of hope came across our television screens. It was a rainbow of volunteers, white, black, Hispanic, Asian, all working hard to clean up the wreckage and put their communities back together again. Maybe the rest of us can learn something from these images of cooperation, from the ashes of chaos. Maybe there's a chance for the rest of us to regain our sense of common purpose as Americans and to find the common ground that can move us to the higher ground. I hope so. Like Rodney King said, "We're all stuck here for awhile." I'm Clarence Page. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Friday, President Bush promised to work with Congress to revitalize the nation's inner cities. He said he would re-emphasize his proposals for enterprise zones and home ownership. And the nation's unemployment rate fell 1/10 of a point in April to 7.2 percent. It was the first decline in nine months. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Jim. That's the NewsHour for tonight. We'll be back on Monday night. Have a nice weekend. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.