On Saturday, November 13, though, President Clinton seemed at last to realize that a president has two avenues for influencing American life: legislative agenda-setting and aggressive use of what Teddy Roosevelt called the bully pulpit.

Since taking office, Clinton has exercised the first of these options more forcefully than any 20th century president except Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. But the Memphis speech was the first time he firmly embraced the second option and asserted his presidential role as a moral leader and a source of national inspiration in the mold of JFK.

It was the first time President Clinton assessed a problem not in terms of jobs gained and jobs lost, not in the partisan terms of change versus grid lock, not in the politically calculated terms that have become so common, but instead in terms of principle and moral urgency. After citing statistics demonstrating the disgraceful effects of urban violence of American youth, the President proclaimed, powerfully and passionately, "I tell you, it is our moral duty to turn it around."

Martin Luther King, Clinton said, "did not live and die to see young people destroy their own lives with drugs and then build fortunes destroying the lives of others."

It was a courageous and inspiring speech. What's more, Clinton appears to be transforming that speech into a personal crusade. Last Sunday he repeated the same themes in a speech to Hispanics in East Los Angeles. In Kennedyesque terms, he called on his "fellow Americans" to take control of their communities and their lives.

"We have to make up our minds that we will no longer tolerate children killing; children having guns and being better armed than police officers; neighborhoods unsafe," the president said. "We can do better".

This emerging crusade demonstrates Clinton's understanding that no other individual in the country possesses the president's ability to shape national debate and frame moral principles. It offers hope that Clinton has the heartfelt convictions that American longs for in a president. And it suggests that this country may finally have found a president with the ability and the will to revive the national sense of purpose and promise that vanished 30 years ago in Dallas.