THE BUSH ADMINISTRATIONnhas rediscovered the family. A year ago,nWhite House minions strove to torpedonthe Final Report of the National Commissionnon Children, worried that itsnrecommendation of tax relief for familiesnwith children might upset thenhallowed “budget agreement” withnCongress. Today, with one eye on thenembers of Los Angeles and the othernnervously on the polls, the Bush team isnin the family way.nThe theme first reappeared as an explanationnfor the Los Angeles riots. Thenprograms of the Great Society, MarlinnFitzwater lectured the country, “havenundermined family values.” Translatednfrom pol-speak, this means “have encouragednillegitimate births amongnblacks.” For his part, Mr. Bush promisednthat he would use enterprise zones to restorenfamily values in the cities.nA few days later, Vice-President DannQuayle struck out on his own, arguingnthat “the failure of our families is hurtingnAmerica deeply.. . . Children neednmothers and fathers. A welfare check isnnot a husband. The state is not a father.n. .,. Bearing babies irresponsibly is, simply,nwrong.” He then moved to hisnfamed attack on the TV character “MurphynBrown,” chiding “her” for “mockingnthe importance of fathers by bearing anchild alone and calling it just anothern’life-style choice.'”nThe conventional media gasbagsnquickly pounced on Mr. Quayle, gleefullynanticipating his political castration.nBut alas, the opinion polls came to hisnrescue. I happened to be watching anNew York City newscast that day, featuringna team of all-female commentatorsndenouncing this “gaffe” and celebratingnthe huge embarrassment itnwould bring the White House, whennthey turned to their “900 Line” pollsternto measure the popular outrage. Clearlynunscripted, the latter reported that 74npercent of New York City callers supportednMr. Quayle. A pall descended onnthe set, and the anchorperson confessed,n”I frankly don’t understand.” This reallifenMurphy Brown broke for a commercial.nThe Vice-President, in fact, gives everynsign of earnestness on the question,nand understands the power of his modest,nbut real, pulpit on moral questions.n6/CHRONICLESnCULTURAL REVOLUTIONSnMr. Bush, for his part, sees “family values”nas another wedge issue, the obversenside of his Willie Horton coin, a way tonplay on black-white tensions for electoralnadvantage while camouflaging his administration’snstudied disregard for familynissues during its first three-and-a-halfnyears.nIndeed, the very basis of the Bushnanalysis of inner-city morals is flawed. Ifnblack illegitimacy is the culprit, thenn”the failed programs of the Great Society,”nlaunched in the 1965-68 period,nhad nothing to do with it. The real statisticalnevidence could be read to arguenthat these programs actually helped reducenthe problem. Census Bureau datanshow that the dramatic rise in the blackn”illegitimacy rate” (births per one thousandnunmarried black women, ages 15-n44) occurred well before the Kennedy-nJohnson years, climbing from 35,6 inn1940 to 100.8 in 1959. During thenGreat Society era, the black illegitimacynrate actually declined from 100.8 inn1961 to 76.0 in 1975.nWhat the Bush administration laborsnto avoid, here, is”the painful truth thatnAmerica’s moral and cultural unravelingnhas very deep roots. Politically, it wasnthe New Deal—not the Great Society—nthat drastically altered the incentives.nThe Social Security Act and its subsequentnaccretions worked to bludgeonnthe natural family economy, transferringnall of the dependency functions (thencare of the old, the sick, the weak, andnthe young) from families to the state.n”Wouldn’t be prudent” to touch that sacredncow. Equally painful would be thenadmission that the grand national mobilizationnof Worid War II launched thensexual revolution, disrupting inheritednlocal and religious restraints on the libido.n”Wouldn’t be prudent” to pointnout that modern wars—even the “GoodnWar” or the “Easy War” (the divorcenrate for Persian Gulf War vets is soaring)—alwaysnbring social and moral dislocationnin their wake.nGeorge Bush truly believes in whatnMurray Rothbard has called the welfarewarfarenstate. As fighter pilot, moderatencongressman, CIA director, and ChiefnExecutive, Mr. Bush has been devotednto advancing and protecting the state apparatusnconstructed by Franklin D. Roosevelt.nEnterprise zones and most othernnnparts of the Bush-Kemp “New Vision”nare merely variations on the New Dealnmanaged economy, and can only augmentnthe government’s control over privatenlife, including private family life.nThis explains the near enthusiasmnshown by the Nation, the New Yor^nTimes, and other outlets on the left fornthe Bush-Kemp urban plan, and it alsonexplains why the urban nightmare of thenI990’s has only just begun.n— Allan CarlsonnAFTER THE RIOTS, fires, and lootingnin Los Angeles, both Jack Kemp,nsecretary for Housing and Urban Development,nand Jesse Jackson blamednthe federal government—not for failingnto send in the military, but for not providingnenough social and economic therapy.nHere is Kemp’s analysis, on thenMacNeil/Lehrer Newshour, of why blacksnand Hispanics burned down large partsnof Los Angeles, killed 58 people, andndestroyed ten thousand buildings:n”When an economy begins to contract,nwhen the pie is shrinking, when peoplenare out of work, when a father cannotnput bread on the table for his children,nwhen families don’t have a stake in anneighborhood and live on the welfarenplantation . . . you get hopelessness andndespair. Now, I’m not excusing riotingnor killing or plundering property. . .”nSet aside the doubtful contentionnthat fathers in the inner city have nonbread to feed their children (a classicnjustification for theft). A recession isneconomy-wide, and many people losentheir jobs. Most are not moved to murder.nBy blaming rioting, killing, andnplundering on a shrinking economy, henis saying people do not have the free willnto resist the temptation to act immorally.nIt follows that he is making excuses.nWhile Jackson wants to expand traditionalnwelfare programs, Kemp says henhas some better ideas: “There are peoplenwho are frustrated and [without]nhope—have a despair about their livesnand this is happening too often to thosenyoung teenagers who are turning to thenstreets. And we’ve got to change theirnattitude and their expectations aboutnthe future. And the only way to do that,nin my view, is good education, morenjobs for the inner cities, a better tax basen