S&L; Crisis Stirs Up Partisan Attacks : Politics: The issue is one of several straining relations between the White House, Congress.

Throughout the spring, senior White House officials privately expressed surprise--and relief--that political blame for the nation’s savings and loan crisis had not landed in their laps.

But, as the weather in Washington has turned hot and sticky, so has the rhetoric. On Tuesday, both sides launched sharp attacks seeking to fault the other for the S&L; industry collapse, which some observers are calling the biggest financial scandal in history.

“The Democrats have a big role in it,” said President Bush’s spokesman, Marlin Fitzwater. “If they want to make this a political issue, we’ll be glad to do it.”

“This Republican Administration wants you to keep your eye on the red, white and blue so you won’t see the red ink, the whitewash and the blue smoke and mirrors,” Rep. Barbara Boxer (D-Greenbrae) countered in criticizing Bush for speaking out “1,000%” more on flag burning than on the S&L; scandal.

Fitzwater’s broadside occurred almost simultaneously with disclosure at a congressional hearing that regulators had written in a memorandum that the President’s son, Neil Bush, engaged in “personal dishonesty” as a director of the failed Silverado Savings & Loan Assn. White House officials said that the disclosure had nothing to do with the presidential spokesman’s statements.

The dispute over savings and loans is one of several that are disrupting relations between the forces at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Bush is said to be ready any day now to issue his 13th veto, against legislation that would order larger companies to grant maternity leaves and time off for family emergencies. And within weeks, a public clash between the White House and congressional Democrats is likely over pending legislation to extend the coverage of current civil rights laws.

The sudden angry outbursts have occurred after 17 months in which Bush and the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate generally have managed to avoid such politically fueled explosions. “It’s gotten very partisan . . . “ said a senior White House official, reviewing the acrimony that has sprouted like crabgrass after a summer downpour.

Defending the pace of the Administration’s prosecution of savings and loan cases in the courts, Fitzwater said: “We’re not talking here about guys who rob dime stores. We’re talking about guys who have been taking savings from families through elaborate schemes and mismanagement and finagling of savings and loans, and we are going to find them, we are going to put them in jail, but it’s not going to be a quick process.”

The White House spokesman said that “a big part of the problem” was “that, in the dead of the night a few years ago,” Democrats in Congress raised the maximum limit of government insurance on savings and loan deposits to $100,000 from $40,000.

The increase was sponsored by former Rep. Fernand J. St Germain (D-R.I.), chairman of the House Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs Committee, before the thrift industry was deregulated, with the encouragement of the Ronald Reagan Administration.

“I don’t think you hear any serious analysis of this problem that doesn’t point to Freddy St Germain and the changes that were made in the banking laws back at that point,” Fitzwater said.

“We’re talking about a decade of negligence and mismanagement that has to be corrected,” he said. That comment prompted Sen. Timothy E. Wirth (D-Colo.), to say in the Senate: “He’s absolutely right. Who was in charge then? The chickens are coming home to roost, and it’s about time.”

Fitzwater’s comments were criticized by Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) as those of a “mean-spirited and angry little spokesperson.”

“The President is asking for a blank check without criticism,” Kerrey said, adding that Bush was concerned that the handling of the savings and loan difficulties would become an issue in the 1992 presidential campaign.

Until Tuesday, White House officials had been waiting to see whether their opponents would try to link the savings and loan issue to a decade of Republican control of the executive branch of the government.

Now, said one senior aide there, the President’s political advisers have concluded that the laid-back approach offered too little protection.

“You’re not going to win if you have Treasury technicians fighting against the Democratic Party,” he said of the effort to play down the political dispute and focus on the repair effort under way in the government.