Clinton Heads to Battle Minus Key Veterans

President Clinton is facing the biggest battle of his life without a proven field general to call the shots.

As the focus of the president’s crisis moves from the courthouse to Congress, White House officials who were kept in the dark for months about the extent of the president’s transgressions are at the center of his defense.

But, in a process that now will be much more political than legal, there is no clear commander to take over for the president’s outside lawyer, David E. Kendall--no James Carville, the pit bull of political strategists, who helped deflect charges of adultery with Gennifer Flowers in the 1992 campaign; no Leon E. Panetta, the inside-the-Beltway tactician, to revive the White House after the disarray of its early years.

The current lack of strategic leadership worries Clinton loyalists who have helped pull him from the brink of crisis in the past.

“The biggest problem is that the focus has been stratified between too many different individuals,” said Panetta, Clinton’s former chief of staff. “That creates a lack of a strategic center. You need that in war and you need that in the White House.”

Part of the trauma is that a gradual second-term exodus has left the White House team depleted of some of its most effective envoys to Congress--including Panetta, whose many years in the House gave him peer status as he fought earlier battles for Clinton.

The sooner-than-expected delivery of independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr’s report Wednesday caught the White House in the middle of a process of trying to find reinforcements, perhaps with higher profiles, more stature or better ties to Congress. Among the candidates the White House has contacted is former Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell, a Maine Democrat and architect of the recent peace agreement in Northern Ireland.

But no decisions have been made, and White House officials said the president is leaning toward merely augmenting the current staff rather than naming a major domo to manage the crisis.

Erskine Bowles, the current chief of staff and a multimillionaire who showed his skills with Congress when he helped negotiate the nation’s first balanced budget in three decades, has remained focused on the regular work of the White House--not the scandal.

Deputy Chief of Staff John Podesta has been coordinating the political side of the crisis until now, but he had not been publicly tapped as the commander of the White House counter-impeachment effort. Podesta taught a course in managing crises at Georgetown University Law School and spent 10 years as a senior Senate staff member but never served in Congress, which would give him credibility on Capitol Hill as the White House tries to negotiate for the mildest rebuke possible.

Even some of Clinton’s reliable lieutenants are halfway out the door and finding it difficult to assume full battle mode.

Rahm Emanuel, one of the president’s key strategists, was nervously awaiting the news of the belated birth of his second child Thursday and distancing himself from the center of action as he prepared for a long-planned departure.

And Press Secretary Mike McCurry, who has the highest public profile of any official at the White House after the president and vice president, was also in the process of handing over his job. Joe Lockhart, a deputy press secretary, will replace him soon.

Although the president’s political team now is expected to play a more prominent role, the work of the president’s lawyers is far from finished. In the White House and in Kendall’s office, lawyers were frantically working Thursday to prepare a rebuttal of Starr’s report.

And, despite the lack of a field general, White House officials insisted that there is a strategy for defending the president but that the stakes are too high to talk about it in advance.

Explaining why a White House known for its ability to “spin” events to Clinton’s advantage is suddenly mute, one official exclaimed: “Because we’re dealing with a goddamn different level here. Every miscue can send them off, and I’m not going to screw around.”

White House officials stressed that the team in place is capable. Members of the Cabinet as well as White House staff members have reached out to their contacts in Congress to make the case for protecting Clinton’s presidency.

“It’s a team that has very effective relationships with the Congress, both inside the White House and in the Cabinet,” one senior official said.

But there was ample evidence that the team in place has been less than effective.

Rep. James P. Moran (D-Va.), a moderate and close policy ally of the president, said Emanuel called him late Saturday after learning that Moran would be on one of the Sunday talk shows. Emanuel’s message: Clinton can beat the charges, Moran said.

But Moran, who is furious with the president, was not persuaded. “I don’t think it’s a matter of beating the charges at this point. It’s a matter of restoring the integrity of the presidency. . . . The president would be best served if he was divested of his PR people and his pollsters. . . . This is about him.”

Another House Democrat recounted that a White House official he knew well called him the week after Clinton’s Aug. 17 speech, in which he admitted to an “inappropriate” relationship with Monica S. Lewinsky, to find out his reaction. The official made a “halfhearted effort” to get this congressman to stay in the president’s camp, but his heart didn’t seem to be in the pitch, the congressman said.

“I don’t know if any of us are going to be taking our orders from the White House,” said the congressman.

An aide to a House Democratic leader agreed, noting: “Part of the problem is that they have not developed a strategy for dealing with us. Their strategy is to do nothing.”

One senior White House official conceded that, until a clear field commander is anointed, strategy will remain somewhat amorphous.

“We don’t know what the structure will be until we know what the name is,” the official said.

Members of Congress and White House staff members agreed that Clinton would be served best in this case by a former member of Congress, who would understand the pressures that lawmakers face at home.

“There’s a certain magic dealing with a colleague,” said a former member of Congress who has also worked in the White House. “They know that you know what they’re facing in election politics. That’s important. Staff is still staff. You are never quite sure they understand the real pressure that they’re facing.”

White House officials stressed that Clinton’s personal history has shown that he is capable of rallying even when he appears to be in a very deep hole.

“The president has gotten through some very tough times before, and I’m sure he’ll get though this too,” said one official.

In the meantime, White House officials take some solace from the fact that the fight will be a long, determined campaign, beginning when the report is released today and ending when Congress has made its final decision on the president’s fate.

“It’s important that we take our time, be measured and be serious,” another official said. “We’ve got a couple of months to work through this.”

Washington Bureau Chief Doyle McManus contributed to this story.

Where to Find Report: The report is expected to be posted midday today. https:/www.latimes/com/scandal