Going for Total Victory

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By the time he had wrapped up his half-a-trillion-dollar budget deal late last week, things were going so well for Bill Clinton that he went out of his way to thank his enemies. Never mind that just a week before, those same Republican lawmakers had launched open-ended impeachment hearings against him. In that short period the Administration and congressional Democrats had outmaneuvered Republican leaders, forcing them to accept much of Clinton's spending priorities and sowing discord in G.O.P. ranks. The Republicans caved on everything from paying for 100,000 new teachers to providing an $18 billion infusion to the International Monetary Fund. Is this really what happens to a President in serious trouble? "I just can't tell you how grateful I am for these achievements," he gushed.

Grateful, and emboldened. With a budget victory notched in their belts, Clinton and his advisers began plotting an aggressive defense strategy aimed at punishing Republicans for their quest to impeach him by turning their proceedings into an even more unpopular spectacle. Instead of cutting a deal in the House that would head off impeachment, Clinton's team is choreographing a prolonged partisan fight with Republicans over virtually every aspect of the inquiry. The opening battle will come this Wednesday when the President's legal team meets for the first time with House Judiciary Committee lawyers. Cooperation isn't on the agenda at the White House, where political aides are promising to spend the next two weeks attacking Newt Gingrich and Ken Starr in the run-up to the crucial Nov. 3 midterm elections. Says a top White House adviser: "People who want this to be easy are deluding themselves."

But Clinton's give-no-ground strategy worries his allies in Congress more than it does his opponents. Eager to get the impeachment process over with, Democrats on Capitol Hill have little appetite for adopting the President's defense that he was "legally accurate" when he insisted under oath that he'd never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. They would much rather quickly concede that Clinton was lying and then argue that the lies weren't serious enough to merit throwing him out of office. That approach puts them in synch with public opinion but at odds with the White House. "If people think it's Bill Clinton who won't let it go away, he'll lose the nation," complains a House Democratic strategist.

Which is why Judiciary Committee chairman Henry Hyde last week tried to shift blame for a protracted process to the White House. Just a week after his chief counsel, David Schippers, had outlined 15 charges against the President, Hyde was telling reporters he planned to "streamline" the inquiry by limiting the case to three core allegations--that the President lied, obstructed justice and tampered with witnesses. But any hope of finishing the inquiry by year's end, Hyde warned, depended on the White House's willingness to stipulate that at least some of the facts in Starr's report are true.