COLORADO SCHHOL KILLINGS / POLITICAL RESPONSE

Candidates link killings to TV, absence of prayer

By Jill Zuckman, Globe Staff, April 24, 1999

On the day Gary Bauer was to announce his candidacy for president, he ripped up his speech and wrote a new one. The shootings at Columbine High School required him to respond, he said.

Like the rest of America, candidates for president in the year 2000 have been talking about the massacre in Littleton, Colo. But for the politicians, the subject is a delicate one, as they try to react without seeming to take a public relations advantage of a horrible situation.

"Candidates have to be careful lest they seem to be exploiting a tragedy," said John J. Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College in California. "There's a fine line between drawing lessons from an event like this and seeming to milk political benefit."

Already, there is off-the-record grumbling by campaign aides accusing Bauer and other candidates of going too far. And many spokesmen refused to even discuss why their candidates have said what they did, fearful that any explanation would politicize the subject.

"That's kind of silly," Bauer said in an interview yesterday. "It's one of the most profound things facing the country. What would be bizarre is if somebody wanting to have the highest office in the land was not offering some ideas about why this is happening."

While most candidates expressed sadness and grief in brief statements, Bauer and others have begun talking about public policy and ways to avoid another school shooting.

"I don't think we're going to solve this problem until we get over this hostility to faith in the public square," Bauer, a conservative Republican activist, said. "We have to return voluntary school prayer and I would permit a teacher to hang up the Ten Commandments in the classroom."

Dan Quayle, the former vice president, said on CNBC that he hoped the shootings would not be used as an excuse for strict new gun controls. Texas Governor George W. Bush said he wanted to know how the two young men in Littleton got their guns. "We ought to keep guns out of the hands of children like these," he said Wednesday during a news conference in Austin.

And some of the candidates criticized television, movies, and music lyrics for promoting violence in society. Vice President Al Gore, who will attend a memorial service for the victims in Littleton with his wife, Tipper, tomorrow, said the most recent school shootings should serve as a wake-up call. He also said it should speed up the V-chip proposal to block children from watching violence on television.

"We need to pay more attention to the problem of excessive violence in the media, because in times past it was common for people to say, 'Well, you know, some kids are vulnerable, and if you plant the seeds of violence in most, it won't have an impact.' But in some, it does," Gore said during an interview on Larry King Live.

Arizona Senator John McCain, speaking yesterday in Boston at a forum sponsored by the Boston Herald, concurred.

"Americans, I think, should examine how they're raising their families and the influences that are affecting young people today," said McCain, 62, a GOP hopeful. "I'm talking about TV, movies, music, everything."

Bauer and Bush also said they worried about the constant violence on television.

"It ought to be a concern for all of us to worry about a society where violent acts like this show up on our TV screens like they have been over the last few years," Bush said.

Bauer said that by the time children graduate from high school they have been bombarded by visions of thousands of murders on their television sets.

Republican candidate Patrick J. Buchanan was even more pointed as he cast the blame on a "polluted and poisoned culture" and called the shootings a reflection of the dark side of American society.

"America got a glimpse of the last stop on that train to hell she boarded decades ago when we declared that God is dead and that each of us is his or her own God who can make up the rules as we go along," Buchanan said.

Even as the candidates grappled to say the right thing, many also admitted that there are no good answers.

"I have been asked what can a government do," said Bush. "I wish I knew the law that would make people love one another. I would insist that it be passed."

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.