Media Have ‘Gone Too Far’ on Clinton, Cisneros Says : Reaction: HUD chief says a ‘search and destroy’ mentality is behind stories on alleged affairs. But an ex-GOP aide says press is not playing favorites.

A Clinton Administration Cabinet official lashed out at the news media Sunday for what he described as “search and destroy” behavior in its coverage of alleged improprieties in President Clinton’s personal life while he was governor of Arkansas.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry G. Cisneros, speaking on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press,” suggested that the press has “gone too far in this case and jumped too fast” in pursuing claims by four Arkansas state troopers that they had helped arrange extramarital liaisons for Clinton while serving on his security detail when he was governor.

Cisneros described the charges as “uncorroborated allegations of two persons whose credibility is very, very questionable.” He was referring to the two troopers interviewed by The Times who agreed to make their statements on the record. Two other troopers interviewed by the newspaper over a span of several months agreed to speak only if promised they would not be identified.

Cisneros’ comments represented the sharpest criticism of the media and strongest defense of Clinton since First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton addressed the reports.

Cisneros himself is no stranger to such allegations. In 1988, while mayor of San Antonio, he acknowledged marital infidelity with a political fund-raiser.

“One really has to ask the fundamental question of the press itself, what is the point here? What are we trying to do?” Cisneros said.

“Is it that we believe there is some illegality and therefore there’s the kind of thing that would somehow bring down the presidency? Is that the point? There’s no suggestion that such a thing is possible, that there’s any truth to these things. So why jump so fast?”

Or “is it just to search and destroy, slash and burn, and follow every lead that ever comes along about anyone in public life?” he said.

If that is the case, “we do great damage to the presidency, and in so doing, to the country,” he said. “What’s the point of slashing up the President, with three years to go in an Administration, when the American people voted for him knowing that he was not a perfect person? None of us is. I’ve yet to meet the perfect person anywhere in my life.”

State troopers Larry G. Patterson and Roger L. Perry claimed that when they worked for Clinton, they helped him set up and hide numerous extramarital encounters.

The Times published its story about the allegations Tuesday. Mrs. Clinton strongly defended her husband, calling the charges “outrageous.” Clinton denied accusations included in the story that he had tried to buy the troopers’ silence with job offers.

Cisneros suggested that the press was applying a “new standard” to coverage of Clinton.

But William J. Bennett, a former official in two Republican administrations, insisted on the same program that GOP officials, including former President Richard Nixon and former Vice President Dan Quayle, have also been treated roughly by the media.

“The one thing that is consistent is that a President and President’s men tend to say there’s a new standard each time one appears and, ‘They’re being particularly tough on me,’ ” said Bennett, who served as education secretary under former President Ronald Reagan and as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy in the George Bush Administration.

Charges of marital infidelities have plagued Clinton since the initial days of his presidential campaign, when Gennifer Flowers, a former Little Rock nightclub singer, insisted that she and Clinton had carried on a 12-year affair.

Clinton denied the charges at the time but acknowledged that he had caused “pain” to his family.