The possibility that the president will be seriously damaged politically by the sex scandal has created considerable anxiety in the African American community. PNS commentator Earl Ofari Hutchinson explores the reasons for the president's high standing among blacks, and finds solid reasons for that anxiety. Hutchinson is the author of The Assassination of the Black Male Image. (email: ehutchi344@aol.com)

What will happen to civil rights if Clinton does not survive the sex scandal?

This question is making many African-Americans anxious -- and with good reason. Clinton is the first U.S. president since Lyndon Johnson to forcefully champion civil rights. He has outranked Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan in popularity among blacks, and won nearly 90 percent of their vote in the 1996 presidential election.

This is not reflex loyalty to the Democratic Party, but a sign of genuine affection. Those feelings were evident at the 1996 NAACP convention, when delegates rapturously listened to him evoke -- in the cadences of a Southern Baptist preacher -- memories of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the civil rights movement.

Many African-Americans dread the possibility of a return to the wilderness of the Reagan-Bush years, when civil rights and social programs were under full assault. They are horrified to see many top Republicans and Democrats scampering away from racial issues like the plague. And many agree with Hillary Clinton that attacks on the president are part of a "get Bill" campaign launched the moment he first drew breath at the White House.

Clinton has risked his political neck on racial matters, knowing he would draw relentless fire from Republican conservatives. This is why many blacks applaud him for such stands as:

• refusing to denounce affirmative action and insisting on equal access to government contracts for women and minorities, as well as actively opposing California's anti-affirmative action initiative, Proposition 209;

• recognizing the threat of hate crimes and calling the first ever White House conference on the subject;

• appointing more African-Americans, Asians and Latinos to important cabinet and sub-cabinet posts than any other president. He has also sought advice from the Hispanic and Black Congressional Caucuses on critical foreign and domestic issues.

In addition, with his "Race Initiative," Clinton has participated in town hall meetings on race, and promised to act on proposals from his advisory committee on ending discrimination. Vice President Al Gore recently announced the White House will spend $86 million to enforce the laws against discrimination and investigate alleged police abuse, the first substantial increase in funding for civil rights enforcement in years.

And Clinton plans to visit sub-Saharan Africa will make him the first U.S. president to visit a region long ignored or ridiculed by U.S. policy makers.

This does not mean Clinton is the political reincarnation of King and Johnson. He is not. This is the same Clinton who wimped out on the nomination of Lani Guinier and Jocelyn Elders, the Clinton who resisted black lawmakers' efforts to halt the blatant racial dual standard in drug sentencing laws, who proposed no money for job training and education programs to insure welfare reform can work -- and who more often than not has supported Republicans in their meat ax approach to social spending.

Still, there is a real danger that Clinton's fall would shove racial issues back into the political wilderness. Gore, saddled with a scandal-ridden Clinton presidency, would say or do little on the always-thorny issue of race. If he is badly wounded politically, Clinton himself may deem his civil rights program expendable.

This could slam shut the first window of opportunity for meaningful racial dialogue that has happened in years. That would be a scandal that the nation would not so easily overcome.