by Archana Subramaniam by CNB
Roanoke Times Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc. DATE: SUNDAY, February 21, 1993 TAG: 9302210188 SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO SOURCE: From The New York Times and Los Angeles Times DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
CHILDREN QUESTION CLINTON
Pursuing his public relations campaign to pressure Congress to support his economic agenda, President Clinton appeared on television Saturday to answer selected questions from 40 polite children.The two-hour ABC News special was stylistically a cross between "Donahue" and "Mr. Rogers's Neighborhood," and gave Clinton a chance to sell his plans and policies directly and without challenge to children and parents.
The children's questions, which were rehearsed in the White House by ABC News Friday night, included the cute ("Is Chelsea single?") the soft ("Why did you want to become president?") and the politically pointed ("As a country we are very biased towards homosexuals; what are you going to do to help America accept them?")
With the ABC News anchor Peter Jennings guiding him through the live broadcast from the East Room, Clinton engaged each child in brief conversations that were masterworks of his talent for political dialogue that is warm and fuzzy.
Many of the children asking the questions had been affected by the issues they raised.
A child with AIDS asked Clinton what he would do to restore money for AIDS research cut by President Bush (who actually increased such funding as president).
A boy from Louisiana whose brother had died of a rare cancer asked what Clinton would do to end pollution and reduce the risk of environmentally caused cancers. A girl from Washington who lived in a homeless shelter asked Clinton to help find housing for people without homes.
The president presented his policies and plans on the issues raised as the appropriate response to the suffering displayed before him.
"We'll do it for your brother," Clinton said, in assuring the boy from Louisiana that he would work to increase anti-pollution efforts. He urged the child with AIDS to "hang in there" until increased financing for AIDS research led to a cure. "I don't think Americans want children like you living in a homeless shelter," he said to the girl from Washington.
A jeans-clad Chelsea, in a cameo appearance with Socks the first cat, confided that Secret Service agents shadow her at school all day, but she said it didn't bother her because "they stay out of the way." When one youngster in the audience asked if Chelsea was single, she blushed and said she was. And her father added: "She better be."
ABC News, which conceived, designed and produced the program as part of its series of Saturday morning specials for children, tried to sell the idea for it during the 1992 presidential campaign to strategists for both Clinton and Bush, said Jennings, in a telephone interview after the program.
"They both saw that this was a good forum for them in political terms," Jennings said. ABC renewed the idea after the election, and found Clinton's advisers receptive. "Having seen the president with the kids today," he said, he thought they were "pretty satisfied."
"I'm very much aware of the political opportunity it presents for the president. I'm very aware that when he is talking to the kids he is also talking to the people who can put pressure on Congress," Jennings added. "But I think that concern is superseded in this instance by the opportunity for the president to have an exchange with children."
During his national radio address earlier Saturday, Clinton urged the country to fall behind his economic plan for the good of its children. To those who would criticize his program, he said: "Don't waste the people's time any more. I won't raise people's taxes without cutting spending. Tell us exactly where you want to cut and I'll gladly listen."