Frustrated Clinton Assails Falwell and Limbaugh : Interview: Mix of politics and religion feeds intolerance and cynicism, President says. He accuses televangelist of making baseless attacks.

President Clinton on Friday joined the growing cultural and political war between Democrats and their critics on the right, bitterly assailing Christian broadcasters and conservative radio talk-show hosts.

In unusually angry and aggressive remarks during a radio interview, Clinton attacked the Rev. Jerry Falwell and popular radio personality Rush Limbaugh by name, saying that their brand of politics and religion feed a spreading intolerance and cynicism across America.

The tenor and heat of his remarks showed what is increasingly becoming apparent--that for those in the roiling political battle, this is less a contest between strong adversaries with some mutual respect than a holy war fueled by bitterness and personal loathing.

Clinton spoke by telephone from Air Force One as he was flying to St. Louis to inaugurate a youth service program and headline a $1,500-a-plate fund-raiser for House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.).

The President said that televangelist Falwell and other spokesmen for the religious right hide behind their fervent protestations of faith while engaging in baseless personal attacks and political demagoguery.

“I do not believe that people should be criticized for their religious convictions,” Clinton said. “But neither do I believe that people can put on the mantle of religion and then justify anything they say or do.”

The President called Falwell’s Christian values questionable when he uses his church and his access to television to promote a videotape attacking Clinton’s honesty and morality.

Clinton said that the Falwell tape, which includes lurid allegations about Clinton’s sex life, his personal finances and assorted skullduggery in Arkansas, is full of “scurrilous and false charges.”

“Remember,” Clinton said, “Jesus threw the money-changers out of the temple. He didn’t try to take over the job of the money-changers.”

In an interview with Cable News Network later Friday, Falwell dismissed Clinton’s criticism and invited the President to tape a personal rebuttal to the videotape for use on the “Old Time Gospel Hour,” which airs on 200 stations nationwide.

“While the President should really direct his denials and apparent anger at those making the charges, we will be happy to provide him a forum for rebutting those charges, assuming he has watched the video, knows what the charges are and addresses them specifically,” Falwell said.

Clinton’s growing frustration not only with his legislative difficulties but with the unanswered attacks on his character was evident in the 23-minute interview with radio station KMOX.

He was testy from the outset, then unloaded on radio interviewers Charles Brennan and Kevin Horrigan after they asked about the alleged pilfering of towels and bathrobes from the aircraft carrier George Washington by White House staff members on the President’s recent trip to Europe to commemorate the D-day anniversary.

“Look at all the things you could have asked me about and you just asked me about that,” Clinton said, his voice rising in wrath. “Did you know that there were other people on that aircraft carrier? Did you know that there were press people on the aircraft carrier? Did you know that the carrier had been fully reimbursed out of the private pocket of a White House staff member who was so upset about it. . . ? No. No.”

White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers went out of her way to insist that Clinton was not angry. He was shouting only to be heard over the engine noise of Air Force One, she said.

“He wasn’t angry and didn’t want to leave the impression that he was,” Myers said after reading wire service accounts that described the President as inflamed. “It sounded a lot harder than it was.”

She said that Clinton did not intend to point fingers at any individuals. “I think the President just spoke his mind,” she added.

Clinton’s assault on Falwell, Limbaugh and other critics elevated to a new plane a battle that Rep. Vic Fazio (D-West Sacramento) launched earlier this week with an attack on the Republican Party and its supporters from the “intolerant . . . religious right.”

Fazio warned that radical fringe groups are seizing control of the GOP in more than a dozen states and are threatening to become a major force in Congress.

Fazio’s comments were denounced by Republican leaders as “religious bigotry” and a “calculated smear campaign.”

It was clear Friday that Clinton would join Fazio’s line of attack as part of the Democratic Party strategy to demonize the right and stanch Democratic losses in the November mid-term elections.

The President said he respects the religious convictions of evangelicals but that he would not be silent “when people come into the political system and they say that anybody that doesn’t agree with them is Godless, anyone who doesn’t agree with them is not a good Christian, anyone who doesn’t agree with them is fair game for any wild charge, no matter how false, for any kind of personal, demeaning attack.”

The Falwell tape sells for $43, and tens of thousands reportedly have been sold. The people quoted on the tape are several longtime enemies of Clinton who, among other things, suggest that Clinton was involved in several murders in Arkansas.

Falwell aide Mark DeMoss has said that he does not know if the charges are true but believes they should be aired so they can be investigated.

House Republicans also responded to Clinton’s comments. “People who go to work on Monday and church on Sunday are not public enemies,” said Rep. Dick Armey (R-Tex.), who chairs the House GOP Conference. “Clinton should be putting an end to this McCarthyistic tactic now, rather than fanning the flames and setting up some religious right bogeyman.”

The mainstream media also did not escape Friday’s presidential ire. Clinton complained that the reporting on his Administration has emphasized its failures unfairly and ignored its accomplishments.

He said that news reporting today is “much more negative . . , much more editorial . . . and much less direct” than ever before.

And he said that the American people were subjected to a “constant unremitting drumbeat of negativism and cynicism” from talk radio--particularly Limbaugh and his many imitators.

Clinton noted that the three-hour Limbaugh show would follow him on the same radio station and that he would have no opportunity for response or challenge.

“And there’s no truth detector,” Clinton said. “You won’t get on afterwards and say what was true and what wasn’t.”

Limbaugh, in his show Friday, answered the President mockingly, “There is no need for a truth detector. I am the truth detector.”

Clinton said that he had given up hope of receiving better treatment from the press, the religious broadcasters and talk radio.

“So I decided instead of being frustrated, I needed to be aggressive and I’m going to be aggressive from here on in. I’m going to tell what I know the truth to be,” Clinton said.

So no more Mr. Nice Guy?

“I’m going to be very nice about it,” the President said, “but I’m going to be aggressive about it.”

Times staff writer Jeff Leeds in Washington contributed to this story.