President, First Lady Display Semblance of Normal Living

An observer at the White House might have caught a glimpse of President Clinton Friday:

He appears suddenly, smiling, waving, as he bids farewell to visiting European diplomats at the doorway to the White House West Wing. There he is on the telephone with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and presiding over a meeting of an AIDS panel. And there he is behind closed doors at yet another meeting, this one on the budget. “A perfectly normal budget meeting on an extraordinary536870912day,” said a participant.

As for First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, she is seen Friday seated in a rocking chair at Children’s Hospital in Washington. A group of patients gathered at her feet is delighted by what has become a traditional holiday visit. She tells tales of how First Cat Socks and First Dog Buddy really don’t like each other--and she says that next year, maybe she will return with Buddy.

So how, spokesman Joe Lockhart is asked back at the White House, is the president keeping up with his near-certain impeachment? It is 1:11 p.m. and the House of Representatives is already f1869967904hours into its debate.

“I don’t know that he’s gotten a report on it yet,” the press secretary says.

In the cocoon in which the president and first lady live and work, the tenor on Friday reflected the futility that the White House faces.

Doing Little to Make Case

How much was Clinton doing to make his case?

“Very little,” Lockhart said.

Rep. Christopher Shays of Connecticut, one of the few House Republicans whose vote was still up in the air, visited Clinton. He left the White House grounds without a stir.

The president’s sunny disposition, Lockhart said, stemmed from the holiday season of good cheer, seven hours of sleep Thursday night and word that after two days of operations over Iraq, all U.S. fliers had returned safely. To which a curmudgeonly skeptical veteran of such White House reports, Helen Thomas of United Press International, disbelieving that even these events could help overcome the heaviness of the day, blurted out to Lockhart: “Is he out of his mind?”

At its heart, the White House plan Friday was twofold: To project an image of business as usual, the portrait behind which every modern administration retreats in crisis, and to begin fending off growing calls for Clinton’s resignation after impeachment.

White House officials and outside advisors anticipate a concerted and loud campaign from conservative Republicans they fear will find some support among Democrats, that the president should step down to avoid a wrenching Senate trial.

“I think the results of a meteor strike are more likely than the resignation of the president,” said Vice President Al Gore, who kept to a largely private schedule throughout the day.

Clinton’s advisors admitted that the scenario may seem far-fetched but one said: “We don’t want it to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“Three weeks ago few of the White House guard thought it was possible that he was going to be impeached. I think things are so fluid, so up in the air, nobody can tell you what is going to happen,” said a former senior White House official who continues to advise his former colleagues.

So it went in and around the White House: A bizarre pastiche in which the usual business was being conducted, even as the clerk of the House read out the articles of impeachment against the536870914president.

Every television set in the White House was tuned to one cable news operation or another. But they always are. Still, the impeachment matter was inescapable--if out of White House control--even as one after another, hour after hour after hour, the president’s critics were shown on the House floor, their accusations and condemnations becoming an aural wallpaper for the day’s work.

Mrs. Clinton kept up the public schedule for the family. Dressed in a double-breasted black pantsuit, a gold blouse and Christmas tree pin adding a touch of holiday flare, she stepped out onto the White House South Portico, before cameras and reporters, to discourage drinking and driving during the holidays.

Standing with the parents and brother of a boy killed by a drunken driver, she told reporters how she was doing. “Fine,” she said.

Support for President Noted

“You know, the vast majority of Americans share my approval and pride in the job that the president is doing for our country and I think that view is shared not only by the vast majority of Americans, but by people all over the world,” she said.

“In this holiday season, as we celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah and Ramadan . . it’s a time for reflection and reconciliation among people,” she said.

Times staff writers Sam Fulwood III and Marlene Cimons contributed to this story.