A great contradiction is emerging in American public opinion. With the Dow Jones index at a record high and an array of other indicators pointing toward a booming economy, Americans should be satisfied and optimistic about the future. But in the face of historic economic prosperity, a profound crisis seems to be haunting Americans’ psyche — the school shootings in Littleton, Colorado last month were just the latest reminder of the moral quandary that is increasingly dominating the American agenda. The results of recent public opinion polls lead to a nagging question — if the economy looks so good, why do Americans feel so bad?

Weakening moral values is now Americans’ most dominant concern about the state of the nation. A recent poll conducted for the Shell Oil Co. shows that 56 percent of the public identifies moral values as the area of national life in which we face the gravest problems today, far ahead of race relations, the environment, the economy or national defense. In fact, the breadth of concern is so great that moral values is identified as the country’s most serious problem by men and women, Americans of all generations, adults in all regions of the country, and residents of big cities as well as small towns.

In approaching campaign 2000, it seems likely that addressing the country’s moral crisis will carry more weight than other issues in reaching out to voters. Before candidates rush to embrace school uniforms or the V-chip, however, they may want to turn their gaze inward first. Americans are not looking for scapegoats in the debate over declining moral values — in fact, they are not really looking to elected officials to solve the nation’s moral problems directly. Instead, the American public wants its leaders to put their own house in order. Overwhelmingly, Americans are more bothered by elected officials “being hypocritical” than by their “not working to improve the country’s moral values.” Furthermore, Americans have very little confidence in elected officials to do what’s right — just 14 percent of the public say that elected officials can be trusted all or most of the time to do what’s right for voters.

Americans are engaged in a serious search for solutions to our country’s moral and ethical challenges, which increasingly are overshadowing America’s pre-eminent economic and military stature in the minds of voters. At the same time, the public appears to have little appetite for leaders who blame others or offer quick fixes. Americans are looking to Washington to lead by example rather than by rhetoric; and demonstrating a real commitment to putting its own house in order — such as through campaign finance reform —would offer Congress such an opportunity.

Notable Numbers Sympathy for the devil. Americans like to say how much they don’t like their elected officials, but by almost three to one, they say that elected officials’ bad reputations are caused more by their life being on public display (66 percent) than by their having lower moral standards than other people (23 percent). Going down in history. When asked to identify a single event among five presented that most represents Americans’ declining morality, more than one third (34 percent) of Americans choose the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, followed by Woodstock and the acceptance of free love and drugs (19 percent), the Watergate scandal (13 percent), the Olympic bribery scandal (6 percent), and President Kennedy’s marital infidelities (5 percent). Putting it in perspective. While scandals involving elected oficials make big headlines, these shortcommings are not seen as an important source of the country’s moral problems. In terms of being the greatest problem in our society today, Americans rank “the example that parents set for children” (47 percent) first, followed by “televison’s portrayal of life and values” (33 percent) and “the standards that public officials have set” (16 percent).

Peter Hart is president of Peter Hart Research Associates and Molly O’Rourke is an analyst.

The Political Life

Advice to Clinton: Send in the choppers By Dick Morris

There is something in between bombing at 30,000 feet and sending in ground troops to fight in Kosovo. We can, and should, send in Apache helicopters to destroy Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s army on the ground and knock out his irreplaceable tanks and artillery on which his advantage over the Kosovo Liberation Army is based.

Will the American people tolerate limited casualties in connection with the use of helicopters? Yes. Will they tolerate invasion by American ground forces with major casualties? No. Will they put up with an endless bombing campaign that seems to accomplish nothing? No, again.

The Apaches are Clinton’s best bet. Americans understand that limited casualties are inevitable in any war. Even if they were not sold on this war to begin with, the subsequent expelling of a million people and the pathetic scenes of these refugees on television has convinced them to back the military action. When two helicopters crashed in Albania on training missions, the public accepted the fatalities without comment. If we send in helicopters and inflict major damage on Milosevic’s armed forces while suffering some battlefield deaths, the American people will not sour on the action.

But Americans will not tolerate ground troops invading Kosovo. The Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll of May 5 found that the public would reject “sending in ground troops to fight with the Serbian Army” by a margin of 27 percent to 59 percent.

It makes no difference if the troops are under a NATO umbrella or if we claim that the bombing has degraded the Serbian army. If the troops suffer casualties in any significant numbers, the public will not stand for it. You can’t send in troops in a democracy in the face of 2-to-1 opposition.

On the other hand, Americans will not stand for a protracted war that goes no place. The endless bombing will exhaust public patience. A deal with Milosevic which is less than a victory for NATO will be billed by the press as a defeat. Americans will feel that Clinton copped out. We will dread an Iraqi-style situation where Milosevic’s army withdraws in good enough shape to start another war the minute our backs are turned.

From the start of the Clinton administration, the president was bedeviled by accusations of weakness and vacillation. Only after the government shutdowns, the Bosnia bombing and his reelection victory did the charges fade. If the president lets those Apaches sit on the pads in Albania while the air war appears to be inconclusive and ineffective, his reputation for weakness will grow and his hard-earned progress will stall.

Americans are not neophytes. They realize that war leads to a risk of casualties. Provided these deaths take place in an operation they find effective and are incident to a policy of which they basically approve, the people will not jump ship if casualties eventuate.

But if the deaths are massive and follow a ground invasion which they don’t want, there will be hell to pay. If the deaths are needless and lead to no end beyond a face-saving settlement that achieves nothing, the press won’t let Clinton live it down. The best answer is to deploy the most effective air weapon we have against a ground army — Apache helicopters. That’s why we have them.

Dick Morris is a former political consultant to President Clinton, Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and other political figures.

On the Record

Kosovo: Where do we go from here? By Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich

In the NATO bombing campaign of Serbia, the term “accident” has been applied to a deadly string of bombing hits. When a NATO missile struck a bus killing 47 passengers, it was an accident. When a NATO bomb struck fleeing Kosovar refugees, killing 75, it was an accident. When a NATO bomb destroyed the embassy of the People’s Republic of China, killing three and injuring 20, it was an accident. When NATO intensifies the bombing, the accidents mount.

Here is another accident scenario waiting to unfold: NATO bombs an old nuclear reactor at the Vinca Research Institute in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, causing radioactive contamination of Serbia and the entire Balkan peninsula. If NATO could accidentally bomb the embassy of the world’s most populous nation (the subject of so much U.S. multinational corporate attention), who’s to say NATO could not accidentally bomb a former nuclear facility?

With the obvious hazard that an inadvertent attack on a nuclear facility would pose, what NATO needs now is some accident prevention. Here are a few suggestions:

First, a halt to the bombing. None of the humanitarian reasons for the NATO campaign have been achieved; on the contrary, the problems have all worsened, predictably. Ethnic cleansing intensified as NATO predicted it would once the bombing began. Slobodan Milosevic is stronger, while the once-powerful Serbian democratic opposition has been bombed into retreat.

Second, intensify diplomatic efforts. An 11-person congressional delegation, of which I was a part, drafted a framework for a cease-fire with our counterparts in the Russian Duma. The United States should adopt that framework; invite Russia and China to negotiate an end to the conflict; and the United States and NATO should accept a U.N.-brokered end to hostilities and peacekeeping forces.

Third, appropriate enough funds for victim relief. Only a tiny fraction of last week’s emergency appropriation will relieve the suffering of refugees. The United States should do a lot more. The United States should also designate significant funding for peace studies and research. War is not inevitable, unless we quit working for peace.

Two weeks ago, Congress denied the president authority under the War Powers Resolution to wage unlimited war. The vote to reject S. Con. Res. 21 keeps the president subject to the requirement of the War Powers Resolution to end the conflict by May 25, 60 days after the start of the bombing campaign.

The vote is significant because it places new pressure on the president to use diplomacy rather than bombs to end the conflict. Congress can do more. The Democratic Party should back off its support for this war. It is a colossal political error to align the party with this war and could doom our chances to win back the House in 2000 and put the White House out of reach of our party’s nominee. The Republican Party also should continue its opposition to this war. For reasons both principled and partisan, they should keep together their coalition and schedule a vote on the framework for peace drafted by House members and representatives from the Duma.

Rep. Kucinich, a Democrat from Ohio, is among those filling in for The Hill’s editor, Albert Eisele, who is recuperating from heart surgery.