What Can Be Done?

FOR 14 MINUTES FROM THE OVAL OFFICE LAST FRIDAY the echo was familiar. It was George Bush at his Inaugural. There were kind words, gentle words and tough words -- all appropriate, all profound in their simplicity. It was good, plain talk from the heart. Nothing flashy; none of the "Message: I care" nonsense the President pushed on New Hampshire voters last winter when it was his survival and his future that were at stake.

The nation needed to hear its leader condemn the mindless rioting -- and it was good to learn that a federal grand jury is investigating the violation of King's civil rights. It was good, too, to hear the President again share with the country his frustration and anger with the Simi Valley verdict. Nevertheless, there was little that telegraphed a true understanding of the connection between what the President deplores and what he still, for the most part, ignores.

"After peace is restored," Bush said, "we must then turn again to the underlying causes of such tragic events." Given the G.O.P.'S ideology and its sources of political support, it is unrealistic to expect the President to direct a mass transfer of resources toward the economic inequality that plagues America's minorities. But there is a good deal else that can be done, and Bush should begin listening to Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp, the only Administration player who has thought seriously about urban problems. Kemp's proposals to turn over public-housing units to tenants and his incentive schemes to tempt business and industry into the inner cities have got nowhere with Bush. They should now.

Straight talk -- the place where we all must start -- demands that the President move far beyond last week's speech to articulate what everyone knows: in a country that each day reveals itself as two nations, where almost everyone sees race first and the individual second, where there still exist children of a lesser god, the Simi Valley verdict is perfectly explicable -- not as a fair consideration of the evidence but as an expression of fear. The argument that won acquittal played to that fear -- the defense's clever evocation of the "thin blue line" that "alone" staves off chaos. "The jury's message," says Adam Walinsky, a New York lawyer who served as Robert Kennedy's top aide, "is this: What are cops for if not to protect you against what you watch all day on TV and what you feel each time you pass two blacks on a deserted street? White people are so terrified of black violence that they will condone even what they can plainly see on videotape."

As the fear is real, so is the crime that feeds it -- and it should be said again that blacks are themselves the most likely victims of violence. This much, at least, the President must acknowledge. It would help, too, if the man who sanctioned the infamous Willie Horton ad during his 1988 run for the White House would admit his complicity in developing the images and code words that encourage whites to demonize blacks.

Beyond admissions and entreaties, a little extra funding and a little leadership could significantly enhance the public safety. Here are three actions Bush could take immediately: