In his State of the Union speech to Congress President Clinton insisted that the diversity of American society is a strength not a weakness and pledged to bolster it during his second term of office. The scale of the problem he faces in this respect was graphically illustrated before the end of his speech by the jury's verdict in Santa Monica, California that O.J. Simpson is liable for the killing of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman. No recent trial has exposed divisions between white and black Americans so clearly. One of the greatest challenges facing Mr Clinton is how to shape his legislative agenda so as to mitigate not deepen them.
His other overall political priorities were identified well in advance - education for all, welfare reform, balancing the budget, bipartisanship with the Republican Congress and the reaffirmation of US leadership abroad. He has spelled them out in a budget bill to be published today, which is predicated on the assumption that it will be possible to work closely with his political opponents in Congress.
If one were to evaluate these priorities from the point of view of their impact on race relations one could conclude that a determined approach to greater educational opportunity would tend to mitigate them. But welfare reform and budget balancing, which reduce and redirect large sums of public money away from the poorest US citizens, will tend to deepen racial division unless they are very carefully implemented and monitored. It will take a very buoyant economy to absorb the several million people, many of them black, who will be denied welfare under these bipartisan reforms.
President Clinton's advice to the American people, once again, is that they should respect this second verdict on O.J. Simpson. Although it looks like double jeopardy to many African Americans - and to many observers on this side of the Atlantic - there are a number of legal points which differentiate the two trials. This one concerned liability for civil damages rather than criminal guilt; it demanded a much less exacting standard of legal proof, while at the same time allowing new and convincing evidence to be produced and obliging the accused to undergo cross examination. These factors should be borne in mind as much as the obviously contrasting racial composition of the respective juries.
The O.J. Simpson affair is set to run and run as appeal follows appeal. Many will conclude that there is a certain rough justice about it, and that it confirms the spectacular character of legal and media issues in American life. Mr Clinton still has several such hurdles to overcome himself if his second term is not to become overwhelmed with criminal and civil cases which could take so much from the evident popularity of his educational policies and the political skill with which he has framed his legislative agenda.