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Mr. and Mrs.President

See How They Ran

Perfectly in touch with the temperament of his times, President Clinton has always known not only what his fellow citizens would admire, but also how much they would tolerate.

His career rarely has been free of accusations of sexual misconduct, but through a combination of public confession, obfuscation and denial, he has managed to emerge as the dominant figure in American political life, so dominant that there is barely anyone in second place.

Yet he knows that the higher the pedestal, the farther the fall, and Monday he faces the most crucial test of his presidency when he is scheduled to give testimony to a grand jury investigating him for criminal misdeeds.

``This could well be the defining moment of his presidency,'' said presidential historian Gil Troy. ``Monday is going to be a big moment in the history of the presidency, a moment historians will look back to.''

Clinton is suspected of having had an affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, lying about it under oath, and trying to cover it up.

Even Clinton's closest advisers, who just a few months ago were arguing that he would have to come clean with the American people to earn their trust, are now claiming that the American people have already judged him and forgiven him without any explanation, let alone a confession.

``People are pragmatic, not idealistic,'' said White House spokesman Mike McCurry. ``Our judgment of what is exemplary has changed. People want someone who will get the job done. They want someone who will protect a strong economy and a strong country.''

From the very first decades of the American republic, presidents have struggled with a dual role -- to be a moral exemplar who stands above ordinary citizens as an example to them, and to be a man of the people.

Few presidents have done a better job in the latter role than Bill Clinton. In the eldest bracket of the Baby Boomers (he turns 52 on Wednesday), he came of age in an era when the birth control pill was readily available but AIDS was not even on the horizon, and entered middle age in an era when the most popular sitcom on television, ``Seinfeld,'' featured overtly sexual jokes week after week.

It wasn't just new standards of sexual tolerance and openness that Clinton grasped and benefited from. He also understood that as Boomers aged and started families, they wanted safer streets and better schools for their kids, better health care for themselves, and someone to make sure Social Security would still be there when they were old enough to collect it.

``He has turned the country around economically and socially,'' senior White House aide Doug Sosnik said. ``He is the only person on the political scene who is defining in positive, future-oriented terms where he wants to lead the country. The Republicans are not even close. They are not even on the field when it comes to ideas.''

But what about the traditional role of president as moral exemplar? What happened to that?

Troy, an American who heads the history department at Montreal's McGill University, thinks Clinton has brought about an amazing change in American history. For the first time, citizens seem to be saying a president can descend from the moral pedestal as long as he gets the job of the presidency done.

``Clinton is silent on the issue,'' Troy said, ``but his supporters say the presidency is not about values, it is about policy. They are saying, `Yes, he's a sleazebag, but he works for us. We can separate public life and private life. And the presidency is not really about character.'''

But Clinton faces a critical, two-fold danger on Monday: The judicial arena is not the same as the public arena. Though Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's grand jury is mainly window-dressing for his investigation because it is doubtful that a grand jury can indict a sitting president, it would still be a serious matter if Clinton lied to the panel.

Not only could perjury in front of a criminal grand jury result in impeachment proceedings, but it also could have repercussions beyond Clinton's presidency.

``The statute of limitations for such perjury is five years,'' said a lawyer who has represented people in front of Starr's grand jury. ``Even if Clinton serves out his full term, after he leaves office in January 2001, he could be tried, convicted and sent to prison for at least five years.''

This is why Clinton's legal advisers have reportedly urged him to consider an option other than the flat-out denial that he ever had a sexual relationship with Lewinsky. Not coincidentally, news of those internal White House deliberations leaked last week, apparently to gauge the political reaction on Capitol Hill if the president changes his story.

The strategy supposedly under consideration revolves around semantics. Clinton told lawyers for Paula Jones in January: ``I never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. I've never had an affair with her.''

That response came after U.S. District Court Judge Susan Webber Wright allowed a narrow definition of sexual relations.

In the version Clinton responded to, engaging in sexual relations was defined as ``when the person knowingly engages or causes contact with the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks of any person with an intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person.''

Clinton's advisers reportedly believe that oral sex is not covered by that definition and that Clinton could credibly claim he was telling the truth when he said he never had sexual relations with Lewinsky.

That tactic could bring into play the second danger for Clinton, which is the limit of public tolerance for evasion and dissembling. All sides agree that this has been a draining experience for those involved, including the public. Poll numbers are not written in stone, and some in the White House believe that just as water eventually will wear away the hardest rock, so the drumbeat of allegations against Clinton will eventually penetrate his aura of popularity.

There is also the matter of what second-term presidents always worry about -- their legacy to the nation and how history will view them. Even if he is successful Monday, Clinton wants to be remembered for something more than just having held onto his job and having overcome well-documented character flaws.

While first running for president in February 1992, Clinton said, ``If the standard is perfection, I can't meet it.''

Nor, his opponents would argue, has he come particularly close or tried particularly hard.

This has never hurt him politically. In the 1992 presidential campaign, incumbent President George Bush hammered away at Clinton's character and trustworthiness. Clinton's past obfuscations about smoking marijuana and evading the draft were well known to the public, as well as Gennifer Flowers' accusation that she had a long-term affair with him.

Clinton was elected anyway, and going into his 1996 re-election campaign he not only had to face a sexual harassment lawsuit by Paula Jones, but also a continual barrage of jokes from David Letterman and Jay Leno about his sex life.

Clinton won once again, and to Troy that signaled the disconnection the public was making between moral exemplar and president.

``In the 19th Century, the presidency was all about character, because that is the role presidents played, they weren't activists,'' Troy said. ``This changed with Teddy Roosevelt. He became an activist president as well as moral exemplar.''

Clinton's defenders argue that no president in the modern age can be viewed as a moral example and that all presidents, eventually, will be shown to have character flaws.

``It has been a result of TV,'' McCurry said, ``which brings you people, warts and all. The president is now in your living room. Sports heroes used to be larger than life, but in the TV era they have been reduced to human beings. Everyone is stripped down to their skivvies pretty quickly these days.''

Clinton's poll numbers are a phenomenon. Not only has his job approval rating set a record for second-term presidents, but his popularity has grown during a time when the airwaves and news pages have been filled with lurid reports of sexual misconduct and dress stains.

Poll numbers rarely just happen in the modern age, however. They are often driven, and Clinton's numbers have been driven by the tireless efforts of a vast and sophisticated media machine headquartered in the White House.

``Clinton has not only dodged the bullet again and again, but he has shifted the debate to Kenneth Starr,'' Troy said, speaking of the independent counsel who is investigating Clinton in the Lewinsky matter. ``It is every defendant's dream -- the prosecutor becomes the target.''

The poll numbers tell the tale. As of last week, Clinton's personal favorability rating was at 60 percent, while Starr's rating was at 26 percent and Lewinsky's, 13 percent.

What has Clinton aides nervous, however, is that ever since Starr began serving his blizzard of subpoenas and the Supreme Court limited the number of those close to Clinton who could choose to remain silent, a tightening cone of silence has descended upon the president.

``There is a very small group advising the president, and it does not include the White House staff,'' Deputy Press Secretary Joe Lockhart said.

The White House staff believes, however, it has a secret weapon: The intimate connection Clinton has with ordinary citizens, who trust him more than they do his detractors.

``It's not that the people don't care about character traits,'' McCurry said, ``but they elected Clinton twice, and now they are seeing the `official culture' in Washington and New York, the elite opinion centers, telling them that they made a bad decision. They see the elites telling them they know better than us.''

But not all of Clinton's advisers believe he, or the nation, will come through this matter unscathed.

``This has been damaging to the president and to the presidency,'' a close outside adviser said. ``The country won't founder; the republic will survive, but the institution of the president has been hurt by this.

``This has not been good for us or for Bill Clinton, and you'd have to be an idiot to say otherwise.''

According to his aides, Clinton is daily preparing with his lawyers for his testimony while also trying to address his daily business as well as his leisure.

``He's working out,'' Lockhart said. ``But he is doing nothing self-conscious to relax and clear his mind.''

Asked if Clinton was taking any medication to face the big day, Lockhart made a sour face.

``Am I going to ask the president if he's been taking drugs to relax?'' Lockhart said. ``I'm not going to ask.''

Said McCurry: ``He's got this thing where he is in his own zone. He is confident of getting through Monday. He is preparing for it. He is not overly perplexed.

``His obsessions are not the obsessions of the press. He does not wake up with Monica Lewinsky dominating his mind. He wakes up thinking: `I'm going to Andrews and going to try to bring comfort to those who lost loved ones in Africa.' He is able to do some good by doing that.

``Does he wake up and say, `Oh, my God, how do I get through this? How do I testify in front of Ken Starr?' No, he doesn't say that.''

Troy believes that no matter how things play out Monday and through the rest of the Clinton presidency, the great beneficiary of all this will be the vice president or some other candidate who is thought to have an untarnished past.

``This is great for Al Gore,'' he said. ``At the end of the day, we will be exhausted by this, and by 2000, Americans will want a squeaky-clean candidate whose personal life is free from scandal. They will not want another Bill Clinton. There will be a reconnection of morality and the presidency because you really can't divorce the two.''

Clinton has been virtually silent about Monday and related events. He did give one small hint last Tuesday, however, in front of a crowd of big-money campaign contributors in Santa Monica, Calif.

``No matter what you read,'' the president told the crowd, ``every day has been a joy for me.''

A few hours later, Clinton was aboard Air Force One, playing the card-game hearts with his staff. To them, he seemed fine, upbeat, unworried.

At one point, he even began talking about the Lewinsky matter and then stopped.

``I better be careful what I say,'' Clinton said with a small laugh, ``or you guys will get subpoenaed.''