Clinton Takes a Grilling in N.Y. and Gains an Audience : Media: Donahue pelts Arkansas governor with hostile questions on character issue. But many angry studio members side with the candidate.

At a time when Bill Clinton wants most to shake questions about his character, a foray Wednesday onto a television show that prides itself on prying set him once again upon a tormenting stage.

But as a metaphor for what may be happening in the Democratic race for the presidential nomination, the spectacle of the party’s front-runner being grilled by talk-show host Phil Donahue may be incomplete. Consider also the reaction of a studio audience that serves as an American town hall.

Donahue spent 25 minutes pelting Clinton with hostile questions about his marriage, alleged infidelity, belated admission of marijuana use and what he called a penchant for acting as “Slick Willie.”

Then the audience got its chance. As the cameras began to roll after a commercial break, 25-year-old Melissa Roth, a Republican, raised her hand from her back-row seat. But she turned her wrath not on the troubled candidate but on the talk-show host who held the cordless microphone before her face.

“I think really given the pathetic state of most of the United States at this point--Medicare, education, everything else--I can’t believe you spent half an hour of air time attacking this man’s character,” she nearly shouted.

Her voice was almost drowned out as the studio erupted in applause. “I’m not even a Bill Clinton supporter,” she said, “but I think this is ridiculous.”

During his exchange with Donahue, Clinton turned increasingly angry, offering a passionate defense of his character but insisting that some questions were too personal to answer and that such an inquisition was “debasing our politics.”

The confrontation left Clinton aides wincing as what played out before them was an unexpectedly brutal reprise of a battle that first flared earlier this year when the candidate was faced with unsubstantiated allegations that he had conducted an extramarital affair.

Having surfaced in different guises since, the so-called character issue appears according to most polls to have left Clinton scarred and perhaps dangerously wounded.

But if media and candidate were playing familiar roles on the television set, the chorus from the studio audience offered a glimpse at a public that may sometimes be willing to take Clinton’s side.

As Donahue probed anew despite an attempt by Clinton to draw the line, the crowd at one point rumbled with shouted complaints. “Move on!” someone cried, as others simply groaned “No!” And during a commercial break after a particularly scathing exchange, a man seated near the front looked up to the stage. “Give ‘em hell, Bill,” he said.

In fact, in a talk-show culture where people voice approval with applause, the clapping for Clinton grew more vigorous by the answer. It was loudest when the candidate registered his signal complaint: “There are real problems in this country,” he said, “and there are people who’d like to hear them discussed. I’ve done my best to do it, and it’s very difficult.”

It was impossible to tell how the syndicated broadcast, aired here on Wednesday and scheduled to be shown in most cities today, would affect the Arkansas governor’s candidacy as it is digested by an estimated 8 million viewers.

Clinton’s aides argued that he acquitted himself well, but they acknowledged that any benefit would have to be weighed against the possible damage caused by yet another recitation of allegations against him.

They took hope, however, in the show of popular support from an audience that when polled at the start of the broadcast had registered only 33% support for Clinton. They pointed out that in the show’s second half hour, when the audience got to ask the questions, no one in the crowd asked Clinton about what Donahue had called--borrowing a line from Clinton rival Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr.--”a scandal a week.”

As he bounded onto the stage, Clinton took perhaps the riskiest step in a new strategy designed to present himself as directly as possible to voters.

The plan--which relies heavily on televised debates and talk shows--is designed to bypass what the Clinton campaign regards as a hostile filter of television and newspaper coverage. But in subjecting himself to Donahue, the Arkansas governor found himself confronted with questions he thought he had put to rest.

Early in the broadcast, Donahue sked Clinton if he had “an intimate relationship” with Gennifer Flowers, the Little Rock nightclub singer who earlier this year told a supermarket tabloid that she and the governor had an affair for 12 years.

“Her story is not true,” Clinton replied, his voice hoarse and his temper already beginning to fray. “Gennifer Flowers’ story is not true. I’ve said it repeatedly. I have nothing else to say.”

Later in the broadcast, Clinton was asked why he had for so long answered questions about whether he had ever used drugs by answering that he had never broken the laws of this country. On Sunday, in response to a question on whether he had ever broken any “state, federal or foreign laws,” Clinton disclosed that he had smoked marijuana while a student in England.

Asked why he had not previously given a direct answer, Clinton said he had been wary of what he described as the penchant of the media to “make a big thing little and a little thing big.”

“I figured until I started running for President that I didn’t owe you an answer,” he said of the press.

Clinton got some good news from Washington, however--and some support for the view that he is being unfairly attacked. Former President Jimmy Carter endorsed him, calling him “an honest, decent, competent, idealistic, practical man” who doesn’t deserve to have his character questioned.

“There hasn’t been anything proven that shows that he’s immoral or that he’s done anything illegal or improper, but the allegations have been so voluminous and repetitive that it’s created an image among many people that he’s not trustworthy,” Carter said. “I think it’s unfair.”