‘Ignoring the Roots’

So far President Bush has displayed an uneven mentality in his conduct of the nation’s business, an irrational act sometimes succeeded by one that logically addresses its consequences.

The most recent example of such behavior has to do with his anti-crime stance. Starting off with a benediction for the National Rifle Assn. and its “an assault rifle for every red-blooded American with the guts to spill it with” policy, President Bush then proposes $1 billion in funding to house an estimated 26,000 new benefactors-operators of these ease-of-purchase murder weapons.

Not so! cry the cabal of insular conservatives in his Administration, stridently proclaiming that assault weapons are only intended for legitimate sportsmen. However, neither George nor the NRA have ever sought to define a “legitimate sportsman.”

But interestingly enough, since they both subscribe weapons of war as being appropriate to his use, it’s got to mean that the sportsman is licensed (inferentially, if not by forthright edict) to hunt anything on four legs. Or two.

ARDEN H. PARKES

Beverly Hills