President Bush complained yesterday about the "filth and indecent material" that Americans are exposed to through televised trials. Mr. Bush also criticized programs to combat AIDS that give condoms to teenagers and clean needles to drug addicts. He said such efforts undermine traditional values. He expressed hope that Earvin "Magic" Johnson's revelation that he is HIV positive "will teach people that wayward lifestyles or just kind of unsafe sex at random is not the way it ought to work." Mr. Bush made the comments in a series of satellite television interviews with ABC affiliates in major cities. In an apparent reaction to graphic testimony at the recent Palm Beach rape trial of William Kennedy Smith, Mr. Bush said, "I think the American people have a right to be protected against some of these excesses." Mr. Smith, a nephew of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., was acquitted last week. The Cable News Network and Court TV provided virtually gavel-to-gavel coverage. Mr. Bush took a dim view of a plan to distribute condoms to juniors and seniors in Philadelphia city high schools as part of a program to combat acquired immune deficiency syndrome. "This is a disease that can be controlled for the most part by individual behavior," Mr. Bush said. "Indeed, I must tell you I'm worried about it. I'm worried about so much filth and indecent material coming in through the airwaves and through these trials into people's homes," he said.
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