President William Jefferson Clinton made those remarks during a dinner as the Congressional Black Caucus closed its 30th anniversary legislative conference. He was referring to the support received from Black lawmakers during the Monica Lewinsky scandal when the CBC members were his most ardent defenders. When white Democrats ducked for cover as Republicans called for Mr. Clinton�s impeachment, the CBC and Black voters stayed with the president. It is an example of the type of support he has enjoyed from the Black community.

The Southern governor has faced many hurdles during his eight-year reign and at virtually every turn, the Black community was there to pick him up, dust him off and help him stay on his course.

Yet in the face of that support the Clinton record has not been a stellar one. He appointed more Blacks to his cabinet and other high positions than any other president. He also sacrificed them when political heat came�remember Lani Guinier, Jocelyn Elders and Mike Espy?

He promised to "end welfare as we know it" and did. Yet evidence is mounting that moving people off of welfare didn�t necessarily make things better. It left many without proper job training, promised child care, no transportation to get to work and no safety net. The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless recently reported that 82 percent of those it surveyed, who had moved from welfare to work, are no longer employed and live in homeless shelters.

In the heat of outrage over high-profile police brutality cases, like the Abner Louima sodomy incident in New York, Mr. Clinton spoke about the need for better community police relations. Still he has not signed an executive order to combat police brutality and racial profiling.

Mr. Clinton offered a dialog on race, but we have not seen a final report that shows how to bridge the racial divide. He has spoken of the need for fairness and diversity but watched affirmative action die a slow death.

And while Republican George W. Bush let Gary Graham be put to death earlier this year in Texas, Mr. Clinton presided over the execution of a Black man in Arkansas during his initial run for the White House.

We could point out other contradictions, but a serious one arose days before the president�s CBC conference remarks. His own Justice Department found that in 75 percent of cases where federal prosecutors sought the death penalty, the defendants were so-called minorities. In more than half of the cases, the defendants who were placed on death row were Black.

Though the last federal execution was 37 years ago, the death penalty stats, which came from federal officials, are still troubling. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.) has called for a moratorium on the federal death penalty as states and lawmakers, even Republicans, start to admit it is capricious and discriminatory. George Ryan, the Republican governor in Illinois, has had enough political courage to place a moratorium on the death penalty, calling for a task force to look into the problem and examine what�s wrong with an obviously broken system.

Why can�t Mr. Clinton call for similar measures at the federal level, or offer strong support to the Jackson measure? It would send the right signal to other politicians and help make his legacy more enduring and substantial. It would, in essence, show leadership�not the political imagery that his detractors accuse him of.

In any case, Black America can no longer rely on a promise, a smile or even a sax solo�it�s time for results. It may be too late for Mr. Clinton but no presidential candidate in 2000 elections can be allowed to follow his example. Black support must be exchanged for serious policy changes, not pretty photo-ops.