Clinton's Crises: Twin Perils Of Love & War

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In the gaudy mansion of Clinton's mind there are many rooms with heavy doors, workrooms and playrooms, rooms stuffed with trophies, rooms to stash scandals and regrets. He walks lightly amid the ironies of his talents and behavior, just by consigning them to different cubbies of his brain. It's an almost scary mind, that of a multitasking wizard who plays hearts while he talks on the phone with a head of state, who sits through a dense briefing on chemical weapons intently doing a crossword puzzle, only to take reporters' questions hours later and repeat whole sections of the briefing word for word.

And so America has watched for a month now as Clinton lives day to day in Monica Lewinsky's long shadow, trying to get on with running the country while keeping her locked up in never-never land. Last week, as attention finally turned to Iraq, he was asking the public to compartmentalize too, lay aside any doubts about his honor and follow him into war. If that was a lot to ask of a peaceful and prosperous nation, it was even more to ask of himself. And sometimes it showed. When he stood before the Pentagon's generals and spoke of stonewalling and delays and deception and cheating on solemn commitments, rejecting Saddam's claims that his vast, fortified "presidential palaces" should be off limits to weapons inspectors because, after all, "we're not talking about a few rooms here with delicate personal matters involved," you had to wonder, What was weighing most on his mind?

The two crises unfold side by side: there is now a Monica team made up largely of hired outsiders who are quietly, carefully constructing their contingency plans to respond to whatever she may say, in public or in court; and an Iraq squad stuffed with generals and diplomats and political advisers trying to figure out how to sell the least worst option for responding to Saddam and conducting the war if it comes. The Monica team has no public face, never says much, spends a lot of time in secret legal proceedings and has a clear goal: to keep the President in office. The Iraq team, on the other hand, has a goal no one can easily sell, and a dozen spokesmen and -women who fanned out last week in full dress.

It was then, for the first time, that the President's failure to deliver two coherent narratives seemed to merge into a single credibility problem. The public says it doesn't really care if he had sex with Lewinsky, and many seem to suggest they could forgive him for lying about it, but that could change if he falters as Commander in Chief. Lewinsky could sneak up on him through the door of war, bringing along questions of judgment, candor and discipline. A clean win in Iraq would strengthen the impulse to let these charges fade away; but few in the White House hold out much hope that anything clean or clear will come out of this, and a messy aftermath won't exactly let him bask in the vindication of victory.