Leading by Leaving

Sure, he can survive. But can he lead? Sometimes one can lead merely by surviving. Clinton did that after the 1994 Republican revolution seemed to make him irrelevant. He shrewdly maneuvered, played for time, let his enemies' overconfidence do them in. By living to fight another day, he retained the opportunity to advance goals important to him and to the nation. Some of his supporters felt betrayed by the temporizing measures he adopted in order to survive, especially his "devolution" of welfare to the states. That was shortsighted of them; sacrificing one measure to save the whole program is the kind of strategic choice a leader must make when in straits. The greatest comeback of the comeback kid was that recovery of his position after 1994, which made his 1996 victory--the first Democrat since Roosevelt to have won re-election--as much a "miracle" as Truman's 1948 victory.

So it is not surprising for him to think he can survive again. But the situation is different now. In 1995 his temporizing protected his dearest goals. The President had a remarkable opportunity, which he used remarkably, to bring the social concerns of a whole new generation into the White House. On issue after issue, he has done just that--women's rights, gay rights, minority rights. With his emollient personal skills, he was able to speak to and for the baby boomers, overcoming the resistance and resentment felt for the whole world of the '60s. Was he too much the child of his times, too relativistic, hedonistic, elitist? Was his wife more a superlawyer and schemer than the domestic icon expected in her role? With a reassuring sense of symbolism, Clinton overcame most of these suspicions. By now the symbols have abruptly swung in ways that confirm all that was felt about him and worse. It was always silly to say Clinton had stained the Lincoln bedroom by letting supporters into it. But what has he done to that other potent symbol in the White House, with the person he let into the Oval Office?

I know, and have said, that "other Presidents have done it" (actually, fewer than many people suppose). But as one of his closest campaign advisers told me, "He knew the rules had changed." He of all people knew. At the very time when he was stringing his Oval Office groupie along, he was under investigation for alleged sexual encounters. The claim that "mere sex doesn't matter" backfires on itself: if it did not matter, then he would have admitted to such an irrelevant thing from the outset instead of throwing a blanket of denial and distraction over the nation for more than half a year. His message as a result of this was less that "sex doesn't matter" than "truth doesn't matter." Perjury may not matter, or be provable, but the larger betrayal was of a generation that prized itself on candor, on an openness about sex and authenticity.