Diversity on the prowl: don't go stereotyping child molesters.

IF "informed Americans" seem unable to get a handle on the country's social problems, it could be that the public forums of our vaunted Information Age are more committed to showing the extent of a problem than to doing anything about it.

Examine any social-problem show and you will find that it is set up in a certain way. First comes the maniacal calibration for balance and diversity among the guests, ensuring that the dead hand of predictability will prevail for the entire two hour special. Next comes the declaration of war against stereotypes and the promise to banish them. Then we get the "cuts across" announcement that goes: "This [crime, behavior, addiction, disease] cuts across our national life, afflicting Americans of every age, educational level, occupation, and socio-economic status." It is not necessary to include race-color-creed-gender here; they have already been taken care of in the guest lineup.

The latest topic to be taken up by the social-problem shows is pedophilia, which appears to be cutting across such a wide swath of America that it has taken shape in our minds as a map of flight patterns out of O'Hare. If Will Rogers never met a man he didn't like, informed Americans have never met a man who wasn't a child molester. In the cuts-across spiel they are described as "clergymen of all faiths," followed by the Big Three of the laity--doctors, lawyers, and business leaders. Then teachers, librarians, coaches, and camp counselors; followed by society's "backbone" of mailmen, truck drivers, and gas-station attendants; then the homeless, and finally, paroled pedophiles.

With this much diversity on the prowl nobody will ever be able to stereotype pedophiles again, which is the whole point as far as the producers are concerned. The informed American comes away from the social-problem show with no answers, just more information, and mental images far more frightening than yesteryear's discredited figure of the solitary, abnormal "sex fiend." Better one Bruno than the entire Chamber of Commerce, we mutter, but it's too late. The definition of the New Pedophilia is: "No child left behind by a cross-section of the community."

The cross-section now has more sections to it thanks to the New Immigration, which has created fresh hells for the guardians of political correctness, who must be especially alert when discussions of pedophilia get into "cultural differences," e.g., men with a legacy of machismo, or men from countries with a history of child brides.

This could get sticky but seasoned practitioners of the PC arts always find a way. Whenever anyone brushes too close to a recognizable profile, they use airline-security logic and attribute everything to everybody so that no one will have any individual characteristics whatsoever. Machismo? Look at Australians. Child brides? Look at Appalachia. It's a far, far better thing to create a tabula rasa than risk letting a stereotype slip by. This is why our debates never seem to go anywhere; there's not much you can say about a tabula rasa.

With an intellectual climate like this, it was only to be expected that John Mark Karr, the wannabe murderer of JonBenet Ramsey, would traumatize the entire country. The moment we laid eyes on him we knew it was impossible not to stereotype him. If anyone had ever gone beyond stereotype and into the realm of pure quintessence, it was he. With his pencil neck, his reedy little body, his trousers under his armpits, and his almost tangible air of total inadequacy he was the classic casting-office creep, and a WASP creep at that. It doesn't get any better than this.