Preaching to a choir of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's contributors, President Clinton last night urged his audience to "become more intolerant of things we take for granted" such as violent crime and the collapse of the American family - things, he said, that Mr. Moynihan has been warning about for a generation.
Speaking before a giant American flag, Mr. Clinton also suggested that Americans eschew "political correctness," which, he hinted, has sometimes left people afraid of appearing insensitive and thus thwarted frank discussion of the causes and consequences of poverty, violence and social disintegration.
Mr. Clinton's unusual appeal for intolerance "to stop some of the crazy things we have permitted" was coupled with lavish praise for Mr. Moynihan who, as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, will be a pivotal player and vital potential ally in the President's campaign for universal health care.
Mr. Clinton described New York's senior Senator as "a national treasure," as an indefatigable advocate for his constituents in the best tradition of old-fashioned politics and as "the champion of the American family."
The $1,000-a-person dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria added about $1 million to the $1.5 million or so that Mr. Moynihan already has on hand as he prepares to run for a fourth term next year. The Rev. Al Sharpton has said he might challenge Mr. Moynihan in a Democratic primary, but so far no more serious opposition looms to the 66-year-old Senator who was re-elected in 1988 by a record margin.
In his remarks last night, Mr. Clinton invoked Mr. Moynihan's own concerns that Americans have become too tolerant of deviant behavior. The President also commended the heroism of the three men who subdued the man accused of killing six people on the Long Island Rail Road last week, Kevin Blum, Mark McEntee and Michael O'Connor, whom he met with over juice and cookies just before the dinner and who, he said, realized "it was insane not to act." He said they volunteered to help his campaign against crime.
And he cited the cover story in Sunday's New York Times Magazine about Kevin Jett, a community police officer in the northwest Bronx, as further evidence of how individuals can make a difference.
"Gosh, I'd like to meet that guy," Mr. Clinton said.
Warning About Violence
The President delivered a New York version of the warning he sounded in Memphis last month about urban poverty and violence, saying that when the absence of family and work create a vacuum, gangs and drugs will fill it.
"You should leave here tonight far more intolerant than when you came here of some of the conditions that obtain in this country," Mr. Clinton said, urging his audience to champion "work over welfare" and "families over solitude."
"I ask for your intolerance of conditions, not of people," he said, and he asked for it "in a consistent way, in a compassionate way."
Repeatedly, the President suggested that if compassion were not enough of a motivation to make life better for all Americans, self-interest should be, because those for whom the country has not worked will make the others more miserable and less free.
"It's coming back to the rest of us," he said.
As his patrons finished the devil's food cake that followed chicken francaise, Mr. Moynihan heaped praise on the President. After quoting one of his own warnings, this one written in 1965, about social disorder, the Senator said:
"The problem has not been one of knowledge. The problem has been avoidance. Until now. From the time of President Kennedy, I have served in the Cabinet or Subcabinet of four Presidents, and since entering the Senate, have worked with four further Presidents. I have admired them all, but not until now have I encountered a President who would combine passion with knowledge on these
matters."
Mr. Clinton lauded Mr. Moynihan as a political practitioner and as an intellect. "You know, before I met Pat Moynihan, I actually thought I knew something about government," the President said. "Now I just feel like I'm getting a grade every time I talk in front of him."
The Senator's campaign manager, William Cunningham, estimated that the dinner raised more than $1 million for Mr. Moynihan and another $500,000 for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
