Back in The Straddle

GEORGE BUSH LOOKED WITHDRAWN AND UNCERtain as he privately discussed urban policy with a trusted adviser outside government. Hard-nosed conservatives like Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, Bush confided, were urging him to take advantage of the Los Angeles riots by emphasizing law and order and resisting new spending, both of which would appeal to white suburban voters. Other Republicans, meanwhile, were demanding more money for a market-oriented war against poverty. Exasperated, Bush asked, "What am I supposed to do?"

The President answered his own question last week, straddling various approaches toward urban policy and the environment. Hewing to the pattern he has followed for the past three years, he staged evocative photos and spoke soothing words about the need to "rebuild the hearts of our nation's cities," even while declining to press Congress aggressively for a conservative antipoverty program. For the first time this year, Bush summoned leaders of both parties to discuss domestic policy, asking that they "emphasize the things that we can agree on." That didn't leave them much to discuss beyond disaster relief for Los Angeles (and the Chicago flood), which the House voted to fund at $822 million.

After shunning inner-city neighborhoods for years, Bush visited four of them last week. In Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, he toured downtrodden districts that are implementing "Weed and Seed" programs, combining intensive policing with new drug-treatment and job-training services. In Baltimore, Bush was scheduled to speak on health care, but added an announcement of $600 million in disaster loans for Los Angeles.

And in crime-ridden Southeast Washington, Bush linked his assigned topic, outdoor recreation, with urban unrest. "The outdoors is a perfect playground for the entire family," he said, "for whole communities to come together. We all saw what happened out there in Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago, a community that was divided and torn apart." The next day, with nary a mention of Rodney King, Bush praised policemen as "that thin blue line that separates good people from the worst instincts of our society."

Finally, he agreed to attend the environmental summit in Rio de Janeiro in mid-June, but only after the U.S. watered down the proposed global-warming convention that is to be signed there. And he approved his Interior Department's plan to override the Endangered Species Act to permit logging in ancient forests on some federal tracts that are home to the rare northern spotted owl. Bush still intends to campaign as the Environment President, one aide said, but "he understands that owls don't vote, and loggers do."