Clinton Offers Olympics As Tonic For Stricken Nation
Invoking the spirit of the Olympics, President Clinton on Friday celebrated the triumphant opening of the Games as a soothing tonic for a nation shocked by the crash of TWA Flight 800.
Clinton, the nation’s chief mourner, turned a potential public-relations disaster on the eve of the Olympics into a display of healing and unity.
The president recalled the crash-related deaths of 16 Pennsylvania high school students on their way to Paris to study French, and compared them to the Olympic athletes as examples of what young people can achieve.
“Let us remember the dream these children shared: the dream of making the most of their own lives,” Clinton said in a radio address taped in Atlanta for broadcast today. “As a nation, we should dedicate ourselves to encouraging all our young people to think that way, and to making sure that they all have the opportunity to live up to their dreams.
“Our athletes will push the limits of the human body and the human spirit,” he said. “In doing that, they will inspire people of all ages, but I hope young people especially will learn from their example.”
Clinton expressed his condolences to the families and friends of the crash victims.
“We are doing all we can to find the cause of this disaster, and we will find what caused it,” he said.
The Opening Ceremonies in Atlanta gave Clinton an opportunity to assume once again the role of a leader who feels your pain. His triumph-amid-tragedy theme recalled what many consider the turning point of his turbulent presidency: last year’s bombing in Oklahoma City.
“In times like these, there is one person people rally around, and that person is the president,” said Richard Noyes, political studies director at the Center for Media and Public Affairs in Washington. “A political challenger is not even on the screen. The president is called upon to be spokesman for the nation’s grief. To be mourner-in-chief. It’s a role the president can do very well.”
Noyes and other observers said the nation’s image as a place relatively immune to terrorism still could suffer if terrorists strike closer to the Olympic site. And Clinton’s standing remains vulnerable if it turns out the federal government was negligent in failing to prevent the jetliner explosion that took 230 lives.
“If there is something the FAA should have been on top of, but wasn’t, it would look bad coming after the ValuJet crash,” Noyes said, referring to a May 11 crash in the Everglades that killed 110 people. “Or if there was any kind of intelligence failing, say a warning that got lost, the public reaction would be much dicier.”
The cause of the crash remained under investigation Friday, but federal officials, including Clinton, said repeatedly that there was no evidence of a terrorist attack.
House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri quoted Clinton as saying, “We’ve got the Olympics going on. People have been worrying about terrorism at the Olympics. The last thing we need to do is to frighten people wrongly about terrorism if it doesn’t exist.”
The crash off Long Island came only two days before the Opening Ceremonies, but more than 800 miles from the site of the Games.
“It has heightened security here. But since it occurred such a long way from Atlanta, it has not yet been directly linked in the public mind,” said Merle Black, professor of politics at Emory University in Atlanta.