Lewinsky Is Unique Among Women Linked to Clinton

For years, whenever a woman surfaced with a story that threatened the boss, the Clinton team had the same response: Assume attack mode and assail her credibility.

Gennifer Flowers, the cabaret singer who sold her story of a long affair with Gov. Clinton to a supermarket tabloid, had traded “tabloid trash for cash.”

Paula Corbin Jones, the former Arkansas state employee who charged sexual harassment, was said to be doing the bidding of the president’s conservative enemies.

And Kathleen E. Willey, the White House volunteer who alleged that the president groped her, was described as a misguided soul hoping to solve her money troubles with a book deal.

Dealing with allegations of Clinton’s sexual misconduct had been such an important part of the 1992 campaign that a senior aide, Betsey Wright, oversaw an operation to handle what she called “bimbo eruptions.”

But Monica S. Lewinsky, the former White House intern who testified under oath before the grand jury this week about her alleged affair with the president, was always different. From the beginning, the White House has been careful about what it has said of Lewinsky.

The week the Lewinsky story broke in January, Clinton’s Press Secretary Mike McCurry signaled the tone the White House would take by deflecting questions about whether the then 24-year-old intern was “less than stable.”

“I can’t imagine anyone in a responsible position at the White House would be making such an assertion. I have heard some expressions of sympathy for what, clearly, someone who’s a young person would be going through at a moment like this,” he said.

And McCurry quickly signaled that the marching orders had not changed once Lewinsky made a deal with independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr for immunity from prosecution. McCurry described the president as feeling “pleased that things are working out for her.”

In abandoning their usual modus operandi, White House aides said that they are taking their cue from Clinton. “Nobody is allowed to say anything critical of her because it does not reflect his view,” said Rahm Emanuel, senior advisor for policy and strategy.

The legal peril Lewinsky poses to the president is one factor in the kid gloves treatment, some Clinton advisors said. “I think anybody who tried to impugn her from the White House should be shot at sunrise. She could do a lot of damage,” said one former White House official who has advised the president informally in recent months.

White House officials and Clinton allies have gone out of their way to nurture whatever positive feelings Lewinsky had about the president. They did not want her to feel betrayed or pushed into providing Starr with evidence that might prove the most damaging claim against the president--obstruction of justice.

“I think she likes the president and does not want to hurt him,” one former official said. “She has [caused damage], inadvertently, because she talked to so many people. But she is probably mortified that she got herself and the president into this pickle.”

White House officials who had served as the president’s attack dogs in the past, said it was not difficult to decide to treat Lewinsky differently.

“I have a simple calculus,” said one senior White House official, who spoke on condition that he not be named. “All the other people--some of whom we’ve attacked for their motives--were people who chose to get involved in this for financial gain or political reasons. I don’t have any evidence that this person [Lewinsky] chose to be involved.”

Lewinsky’s youth, and the fact that she had worked at the White House and was known and liked by many in the administration, also has been a factor in her treatment. But, for many, the most persuasive indicator was the attitude of their chief.

“We’re connected to him,” said one official. “We’re on Team Clinton, and he’s the head of it.”

That was not the case with other women who have talked about alleged sexual encounters--wanted or otherwise--with Clinton.

When former White House volunteer Willey appeared on “60 Minutes” in March to talk about being groped by the president in the White House, aides quickly raised questions about her credibility. They produced a pile of correspondence in which Willey lavished compliments on the president.

With Willey, the White House was following a well-worn strategy, first used in the 1992 campaign.

Flowers rocked Clinton’s candidacy by telling a national television audience that she had been Clinton’s mistress for 12 years. Clinton supporters still question her motives, even though Clinton has since admitted to a single sexual encounter with her.

“She made half a million dollars from accusations about Bill Clinton,” said one senior White House official who also worked on the 1992 campaign. “Her motives were highly suspect.”

Jones--who claimed that Clinton invited her to an Arkansas hotel room, dropped his pants and propositioned her--filed a lawsuit that led to Clinton’s admission of an encounter with Flowers. But, White House aides maintained, Jones was sponsored from the beginning by Cliff Jackson, a right-wing Clinton hater from Arkansas. Thus they felt free to assail her as politically motivated, the official said.

Talking about Jones and others like her, James Carville, Clinton’s 1992 campaign strategist and longtime friend and advisor, said: “Look, you can drag $100 bills through trailer parks and there is no telling what you will find.”

No matter what happens in coming days, the Clinton advisors said, Lewinsky does not have to worry that she will become a target of similar comments.

“No fair-minded person can say that she is politically motivated like Paula Jones or financially motivated like Gennifer Flowers,” a current White House official said. “Therefore it would be wrong morally and strategically to attack her.”